Hogyoku ex Machina
by Mac Ceallach
Summary: In the final battle with Aizen a different choice is made, and now Ichigo and his greatest enemy have gone back to the beginning. His best friends are powerless, his allies don't know him, and everything he loves is in danger. No non-canon pairings. Complete, with the sequel now posted.
1. Prologue Choosing to Protect

Hogyoku Ex Machina

Dedication: This story is dedicated to the awesome people who run and contribute to the Bleach Wiki, because otherwise the fic would not exist. The background research would be _so_ much harder without it. Thank you!

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. Translations (and therefore most of the dialog from this prologue) were taken either from Bleach MangaScans Online or SpectrumNexus.

**Spoiler Alert**: For pretty much everything up to Chapter 423.

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The orange-haired young man was in an unfortunate situation. A monster with half a dozen huge white wings, each with eyes and extra heads, was holding him inside a glowing ring of power with a single clawlike hand. His black trenchcoat was tattered from battle, and though the black daito in his right hand was still coated with the blood of the monster, the stone in the monster's chest had healed the wounds it had taken after each new transformation.

"…Can you hear me, Kurosaki Ichigo?" the monster asked. Its voice was barely recognizable, a twisted parody of the honeyed tones of the master manipulator it had once been.

"It is true that at one point you destroyed the barrier between shinigami and hollow and became a transcendental. But now, you have lost that power you once possessed, a mere shadow of your former self. The way you are now, you are not even worth taking in and understanding. You will meet death by my transcendental hand, and my killing you will invoke complete separation from the vulgar existences of shinigami and hollow. You are finished, Kurosaki Ichigo!"

The young man had simply been floating, his long orange hair covering his eyes. At last, the monster's rant seemed to be at an end, and his audience spoke for the first time since his capture.

"Finished?"

He raised his head slightly, allowing the monster to see his amber eyes, calm and confident despite his precarious position.

"Is that all you've got?" And with a single swing of his sword, the entrapping circle of light was obliterated, and the young man was free.

"Let's put an end to this, Aizen," he said quietly. "I'm sick and tired of your logic. This will end with one final blow."

He could have used Mugetsu. It would have ended the battle, decisively, but… he could not forget a young man in his inner world, a young man who had only sadness behind his blade. They were one soul again; his shinigami and hollow powers had been re-adsorbed. Now, they were only himself. Human, maybe. He wasn't really sure anymore.

'_What I wanted to protect- was you, Ichigo_.'

They were one being. Was it selfishness to want to protect him in return? Was it cowardice to not wish to use a technique that would silence the part of his soul that young man had become?

No. No, even if that boy had never existed outside of his own mind, even if half of Tensa Zangetsu had tried repeatedly to remove him from his throne, he was someone that should not die. Self-sacrifice should not be murder.

Kurosaki Ichigo chose to protect.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" the monster suddenly yelled. Ichigo couldn't help but compare the creature to the calm, confident former captain that he had replaced. He wasn't sure if it was the merge with the Hogyoku, or simply Aizen's own insanity coming to the forefront now that he was so close to his goal, but it was clear that Aizen's uncanny ability to be several steps in front of the opposition had been neutralized without any action on Ichigo's part. Ichigo prepared himself, calling up a Getsuga Tensho and keeping it within Tensa Zangetsu to enhance the blade's power.

"How can such a thing be? How can a mere human surpass me? It is-"

Ichigo struck.

Only the greatest masters of flash-step could have gotten even a glimpse of the rapid events that followed. In an instant, Ichigo was in front of Aizen, his sword aiming up while Aizen's eyes widened in sudden fear.

In the second instant, Tensa Zangetsu pierced through his chin and entered Aizen's brain.

In the third instant, Ichigo released his hold on the Getsuga Tensho held within the blade.

In the fourth instant, the energy blast should have destroyed Aizen past any hope of regeneration. It did not, because

In the third-and-a-half instant, the Hogyoku responded to its hosts' fear, and let out an energy pulse that connected to the soul of its host, and to the souls attached to its host- namely, the soul of Aizen's sword and the soul of the sword stabbed into Aizen's body.

In the fourth instant, they were _pushed._

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"I carefully researched everything that Urahara Kisuke ever did," the pleasant-faced, brown-haired man with glasses explained "because implanting foreign objects into a spirit is a technique that he invented. So naturally, the extraction procedure must also be hidden somewhere in his research records."

He stuck his hand into the chest of the small black-haired woman trembling in front of him and extracted a small black ball imbedded inside a transparent crystal. He raised it up in front of his eyes.

"So this is the Hogyoku-"

That was as far as he got before both he and the boy lying near his feet started screaming.

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Author's Note:

And thus begins my hopefully-original voyage into time-traveling Bleach fic. I've got about twelve chapters planned. The first four chapters and significant parts of the middle are written and the ending is laid out, so I can say with reasonable confidence that the fic will be finished (unlike pretty much every other time travel fic I've seen) and I can guarantee weekly updates for at least the first month. Although almost all of the dialogue from this chapter was from the manga, this is the only time that will happen, and every other chapter will be several times longer. Ichigo and Aizen are both going to be freely sharing information, and Ichigo will be changing everything he can. I will be mentioning events from the manga, the movies, and the anime-exclusive arcs, although the fic was started before the 'Lost Agent' arc in the manga was begun. Silly me, I thought the series was over when he lost his powers. The fic will have only canon romance pairings, but, like Tite Kubo himself, I will cheerfully exploit one-sided and hinted romance for humor or dramatic purposes.

And, as a teaser for what I consider the most awesome moment in next Saturday's chapter:

"Tell me, Captain-commander. What would it take to force you to release your bankai? Not the total defeat of your forces, I know. Nor even the imminent destruction of everything that you have worked for your entire life. Something more personal, perhaps? The men you loved as your own sons?"


	2. Chapter 1 The End of Hypnosis

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach

Thank you to everyone who reviewed/favorited/alerted the prologue!

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"_So this is the Hogyoku-"_

_That was as far as he got before both he and the boy lying near his feet started screaming._

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There was a black pulse from the Hogyoku, and two streams of darkness connected from the stone to Aizen and Ichigo. The screams continued as the two men felt the horrible, searing pain of their souls being over-written as the Hogyoku slowly transferred their future selves into their current bodies. Aizen had dropped Rukia, who was unable to rise on her own because of his spiritual pressure and the rapidly-sealing hole in her chest.

Finally, the pain stopped. After a brief, horrible moment of silence, though, Rukia realized that a very familiar spiritual pressure had disappeared entirely.

"ICHIGO!"

Aizen was breathing hard, eyes wide as he adjusted to the sudden change in their positions and his return to a human form and a stable mental condition. At Rukia's scream, he looked over to the boy in black whom he had- just minutes ago, now- carved nearly in half.

"Kurosaki Ichigo…" he murmured. How interesting the boy had been. The offspring of a powerful shinigami and a human, born with a shinigami's spiritual ability and a human's limitless potential. The addition of hollow powers had just been an added bonus; if he hadn't already had them, Aizen likely would have arranged for Ichigo to acquire them just to see what would happen. It had been entertaining to push his development and see how many barriers the boy could smash through in his arrogant assumption that nothing was impossible.

Perhaps he had gone too far.

Aizen's eyes narrowed as the figure on the ground gripped his sword- a black daito with a crooked cross for a hilt and a long chain wrapped around the bare arm of its wielder.

'_He retained his abilities and I did not? Why… ah.'_ Aizen had reached the limit of a shingami's potential long ago. His new powers had manifested from his fusion with the Hogyoku, which had not happened yet. Ichigo's new appearance and powers were intrinsic parts of his soul, and had transferred with the young man. Ichigo's body, however, had retained the injuries it had gained in this time, and was now no match for him.

"I told you once, Kurosaki," Aizen chided, "your backbone is the only thing holding you together. It is structurally impossible for you to move. If it makes you feel better, however, you may kneel while I kill you."

He strode towards Ichigo, who was indeed struggling to his knees, with one hand using his sword as a crutch and the other on his stomach, holding the gaping wound together. Aizen raised Kyoka Suigetsu and brought it down, intending to split the boy apart lengthwise.

His sword was stopped by the hand that had been on Ichigo's stomach. It cut slightly into the skin but did not do any further damage, and Aizen met Ichigo's eyes for the first time in this timeline. They were _still_ confident.

And then Ichigo's sword came up, and Kyoka Suigetsu was cleaved into two pieces, and the smaller piece stayed in Ichigo's hand.

Ichigo was touching his sword, and had done so before Aizen released his Shikai. He had just lost any chance of putting Ichigo under hypnosis in this battle.

"Getsuga Tensho".

Aizen flash-stepped away as soon as he heard the beginning of the phrase, but wasn't quite fast enough to clear the range of the blast. He was left with a deep cut across his chest and sword arm, and hissed in pain from the other side of the battlefield before roughly sealing the cuts with a wave of healing kido.

"How did you know, boy?"

"I caught up with you just before Gin stabbed you. You couldn't sense me, and Dad's reiatsu was weak enough that you didn't notice him either. I heard your entire conversation. I know your sword's weakness. _I won't lose to you!"_ Ichigo stood for the first time, using Tensa Zangetsu as a crutch to reach his feet, before standing on his own power, the hand with the sword fragment at his stomach, the other in a guard position. The blood loss had stopped, in the same way that his wounds in the fight with Zaraki (just a few days ago now, he realized) had once temporarily ceased to bleed, but the cut in the center of his body was still present and hampering his movements.

"Look at yourself, Kurosaki Ichigo. You can barely stand," Aizen said, a slight smile on his face, "and you believe you are capable of defeating me? _Learn your place, ryoka boy!_" And with that, he sped towards Ichigo far too quickly for Rukia to follow.

They clashed- once, twice, and again. The only evidence that they were exchanging blows was the sound of swords striking and the occasional flicker of black and white as a blow was blocked, rendering the swords momentarily motionless. Finally, they both halted, breathing heavily and bearing new collections of injuries. Ichigo was clearly the worse off, though. He was bleeding once more from the stomach and leaning on his sword simply to stand.

"You are slowing, Kurosaki. Your injuries have caught up to you at last, for even a transcendental being is bound by the laws of reality. You will die by my hand, and I will go on to surpass the level you have attained. No _human_ will ever outdo me," Aizen stated. "I will end this, as you so arrogantly said, with one final blow." He readied his sword.

"Hold." The one quiet word was all the announcement the speaker needed, and Kuchiki Byakuya appeared between the two combatants, his back to Ichigo.

"Stand down, Kurosaki Ichigo. This is not your fight."

"Nii-sama!" Rukia, who had been watching the fight in horrified awe (how had Ichigo gotten so _strong_?) couldn't have been more relieved. Aizen just raised an eyebrow.

"Kuchiki-taicho. I must say, this is a much less dramatic rescue than last time. Do you think you can save the boy?"

"We can," Yoruichi announced, suddenly appearing with a dagger at Aizen's stomach. "Don't move…"

"…or you'll lose your head," Soi Fon finished, her sword at his throat. Aizen simply smiled.

Suddenly, Yoruichi screamed. Then, in an instant, she was lying on the ground with a huge spray of blood shooting from her throat. In less than a second, it stopped, leaving a gaping wound where her jugular used to be, while Soi Fon and Byakuya stared in disbelief.

Shihoin Yoruichi was dead.

"Yoruichi-sama!" Soi Fon screamed. She froze for an instant (inexcusable, for the Onmitsukido commander, but it had been so _sudden)_, then struck.

"Nigeki Kessatsu!" Her blade was swift and on target, the first blow directly to Aizen's pulse. She had only a second to realize it had not penetrated his skin before darkness descended.

"Bankai, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi." Byakuya's voice did not waver as he watched Soi Fon fly away with her own spurt of blood, but his distress over the deaths of his childhood friend and his colleague was evident in the extreme haste with which he pushed the sakura petals at Aizen with both hands, barely even allowing them to form before they were sent on. Before they reached him, however, the Fifth Division Captain disappeared.

'_Illusion,'_ Byakuya thought, alarmed, as he began to turn to meet the blow from the flicker that had suddenly appeared at the corner of his eye, _'no one is that fast-'_ before he met the same fate as Yoruichi and Soi Fon.

The remaining Captains and Assistant Captains of Soul Society arrived as he fell and saw three of their finest lying in pools of their own blood. Gin and Tosen had been captured almost without notice, with Matsumoto holding a sword to Gin's throat and Hisagi at the throat of his captain. In the background, Jidanbo and Kukaku had arrived and were fighting the remaining three gatekeepers, trying to keep them from coming to Aizen's aid, while the two oldest friends in Soul Society moved in simultaneously to take down the rogue captain as he began flashing towards the boy in black, who sensibly retreated to allow the reinforcements room to work.

"Irooni: white!" Kyoraku called out grimly, while above him Ukitake began the incantation for Hado 63: Raikoho. After so many centuries there was no need for them to coordinate strategy beforehand. Irooni was a color-based game. Shunsui could call out any color, and then could only hit that color on his opponent. The catch was, the attack wouldn't do anything unless Kyoraku was also at risk; to inflict maximum damage both he and his opponent had to have a great deal of that color on their bodies.

It was the nature of Kyoraku's shikai that Ukitake couldn't join in the game while it was being played, but he could fire shots from afar. Kyoraku and Aizen were both wearing full-body white haoris; if the kido left an opening, even the slightest blow to Aizen's torso would be debilitating. _'Of course,'_ Kyoraku thought dryly, _'the reverse is also true'_.

"Sprinkled on the bones of the beast! Sharp tower, red crystal, steel ring. Move and become the wind, stop and become the calm. The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle!" A massive wave of yellow energy came from Jushiro's hand and rocketed towards Aizen, who simply raised his arm to protect his face. Instantly, Shunsui attacked with both swords. His first, second, and third strikes were blocked, but the fourth slipped through, hitting a glancing blow on his upraised arm where it was covered by Aizen's long-sleeved captain's haori.

The hit had no effect.

'_Impossible,'_ Kyoraku thought, as Aizen's gentle return blow hit him in the torso with the force of a hundred zanpakuto, _'he's covered in white, why didn't it-'_

"Shunsui!" Ukitake called out, seeing his oldest friend fall with his torso nearly caved in, while, off to the side of the battle, Ise Nanao screamed in horror. His eyes widened as, just like Byakuya, his only warning of the coming attack was a flicker at the corner of his vision before the word went dark.

"Withdraw! Everyone withdraw from the hill!" the Soutaicho commanded. He had released his sword during Shunsui's attack, and the assistant captains close to him, including his own, had already moved to avoid being suffocated by his massive reiatsu. Now, obediently, they all flashed away, taking Rukia, Renji, and Komamura with them. Only Yamamoto, Aizen, Gin, Tosen, and Ichigo were left standing on Sokyoku Hill. Yoruichi, Soi Fon, and Byakuya all lay sprawled in various positions across the plateau, and Ukitake was crumpled on top of Kyoraku at Aizen's feet. Around the captain commander, flames smoldered, the heat scorching the earth and erasing the clouds from the sky.

"Do you need a hand, Aizen-taicho?" Ichimaru Gin, now free again, called out cheerfully.

"No, thank you, Gin. The situation is quite under control," Aizen said calmly, wiping a bit of dust off of his glasses, while giant walls of flame surrounded the area, separating the traitor captains from each other and leaving Yamamoto and Aizen standing on opposite sides of the largest flaming circle. Yamamoto, his chest bare and his beard waving in his heat waves, stood protectively in front of the smaller flame circle surrounding Aizen's target. The barely-conscious boy leaned on his sword, his hair the only part of him clearly visible over the wall and barely distinguishable from the flames surrounding him.

"Under control, is it now? Arrogant puppy! Do not think I will be defeated as easily as my foolish students!"

"Tell me, Captain-commander. What would it take to force you to release your bankai?" Aizen asked, looking at the bodies at his feet. "Not the total defeat of your forces, I know. Nor even the imminent destruction of everything that you have worked for your entire life. Something more personal, perhaps? The men you loved as your own sons?"

With two flicks his blade, still broken off at three-quarters of its length, sliced through the necks of Kyoraku Shunsui and Ukitake Jushiro. A second later, he kicked their heads into the center of the battlefield. Ukitake's blood stained his long white hair, and Kyoraku's head was still in his hat.

There was a long moment of silence while Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni, Soutaicho of the Gotei 13, stared at the decapitated corpses of his two finest students.

"Ban-kai. Yōyū Uchigami*."

It had been a very long time since the captain-commander had had a reason to release his bankai, and the only currently serving shinigami who had ever seen it were the two men lying headless at Aizen's feet and the woman trying to keep Hitsugaya Toushiro and Hinamori Momo alive. Speculation on its form had generally agreed that the most powerful fire-type zanpakuto would be similar to Daiguren Hyōrinmaru, the bankai of Hitsugaya-taicho and the most powerful of the ice-type zanpakutos. Most shinigami expected a giant dragon made of flame, roaring fire and reducing all of creation to ashes.

They were partially correct. It did take the form of a dragon, but not a dragon of fire.

The earth cracked open in between the combatants, and from the depths of the world rose the Soutaicho's bankai.

It was an eastern dragon made entirely of black obsidian, the solidified form of lava. Molten magma rolled off of its back and caused scattered fires where droplets hit the surface of the Execution Hill. Red cracks in the black surface of its skin mirrored the many glowing scars on Yamamoto's body, and its eyes were the same simmering crimson as the pool of lava it had climbed out of. When fully emerged, Yōyū Uchigami raised its head and _roared_.

Yamamoto himself had become even more fearsome. His spiritual pressure had increased enormously; if anyone not of the captain-class had been on the battlefield, they would have been crushed. As it was, Gin, Tosen, and Ichigo were all kneeling on the ground, struggling to breathe. Only Aizen was able to stand tall, though his movements and breathing seemed stilted and jerky. Yamamoto looked at him calmly.

"In one thousand years, no shinigami has been born who was able to stand against the full force of my spiritual pressure. You were not an exception, boy. What have you done to yourself?" he asked.

"Nothing, yet," Aizen answered. They might have been chatting over tea, for all the emotion in their voices. "In time I shall destroy the barriers in myself that hold me back, and become a transcendental being. For me to succeed, however, the boy behind you must die. If I must first kill you to reach him, so be it."

"Don't be so cocky, infant." He did not bother with an attack phrase. He and his zanpakuto had been together for thousands of years, and they knew each other well. The black dragon shot a stream of lava at Aizen.

Just before it hit him, Aizen's reiatsu flared. Yamamoto's eyes widened and he staggered as he felt the outer edges of a force he was barely able to comprehend, one completely different from the familiar reiatsu of his fifth division captain that was literally blanketing the battlefield. Underneath the stream of lava, a dome roughly the size of a tent was formed, just tall enough to shelter a standing man and wide enough to accommodate a stretched-out body. The lava cooled instantly on the surface formed by Aizen's reiatsu, and the man was covered by an overturned bowl of black obsidian.

From inside of the bowl, the spiritual pressure disappeared. Yamamoto readied his sword and his bankai.

With a single swing, the bowl was cleaved in half, and Aizen stood unharmed over the headless bodies of his fellow captains. From overhead, a loud buzzing noise began.

"This ends now, Captain-commander," Aizen stated, taking a traditional kendo stance. In an instant, he was moving. Unlike Byakuya and Ukitake, though, Yamamoto was both far enough away and skilled enough in flash step that he was able to see Aizen's actions and respond. The black dragon interspersed itself between the two white-clad men faster than thought, but Aizen passed through the dragon without even slowing down, leaving it in two pieces of rock and flowing magma behind him. Yamamoto's own kendo stance brought his sword up to meet Aizen's, and their blades met with a scream and a flash of sparks. With a single twist of incredible strength, Aizen brought both of their swords up and out from between their bodies with one hand, leaving Yamamoto open to attack, and with his free hand-

- with his free hand, he shoved Yamamoto back ten paces, just before a perfectly executed Hado 90: Black Coffin came down upon the spot where they had been standing.

"Unfortunately," said a familiar voice from the flame-wall directly behind the soutaicho, "I cannot prevent the Negacion from being cast any longer." As he spoke, three beams of golden light came down from cracks in the sky and descended onto the three kneeling figures. Behind the openings ripped into the sky, dozens of Menos Grand were visible. As the golden beam hit the black-clad ryoka, his form changed to reveal Aizen, his white haori dirty and covered with blood, his glasses missing, his hair mussed, and with a deep cut in his left torso that halfway mirrored the one that he had faked having when pretending to be the young invader.

The hypnosis ended.

Yamamoto turned, eyes wide, to survey the battlefield. His bankai was swiftly recovering from the attack, as the molten lava that served as the dragon's blood connected the two halves and hardened to form a new layer of obsidian, leaving the dragon unharmed and even longer than before. Ukitake and Shunsui were whole; Ukitake was even conscious and struggling to sit up. Yoruichi's throat was uncut, and she had also regained consciousness and had made it to her knees, staggering and cradling one hand. Byakuya and Soi Fon were still out cold, but were clearly alive; the only blood was on Byakuya's haori and was long-dried. Everyone was struggling to breath under the pressure of Yamamoto's reiatsu, and with a thought he dropped out of bankai and re-sealed his sword. The dragon sank back into the pool of lava in the center of Execution Hill. In time it would cool to a perfectly circular segment of black obsidian.

'_Illusion- all of it? Then how did he knock them- no. The man behind the blows was real. He just had the wrong face.'_

As he turned back to confront the traitors, the duration of the kido ran out and the Black Coffin was dispelled, leaving the orange-haired ryoka that Yamamoto had believed he was protecting to fall flat on his face. Yamamoto walked over to stand by the young warrior while the assistant captains of soul society, accompanied by a now-conscious Komamura, flashed back onto the battlefield and, where applicable, separated to join their respective captains. Ise Nanao promptly began a healing kido on Kyoraku's chest. Next to the captain-commander, the ryoka groaned and coughed up a mouthful of blood, muttering "Shit…"

"Still alive, Kurosaki? Tell me, what does it take to kill you? It is becoming quite annoying," Aizen said genially as he straightened his hair. Beneath him, the ground cracked and the segment Aizen was standing on rose up into the air.

"Bastard…" the boy muttered, rising to his knees. Yamamoto's eyes lingered on the gaping wound in the boy's stomach, clearly visible under the remains of his coat, which only had the left arm and a bit of fabric left. He wasn't sure how the boy was still alive, much less still moving. The wound was not bleeding, but that might have been simply because there was no more blood to be lost; the boy's face was incredibly pale, making his vibrant orange hair seem even more shocking.

"Lie down, boy. The fourth division will be here soon, and you'll be treated. That beam of light is called 'Negacion'. The Menos use it to rescue their comrades. Once that light is cast, the area inside the light becomes a completely separate dimension and impenetrable from the outside. From the moment that light came down, Aizen had gone out of our reach."

"Just from the outside?"

"Do you really think that the fourth division will be able to treat him, Yamamoto?" Aizen asked, almost idly, from his position slightly above head-level. Off to the side, the ground beneath Gin's and Tosen's feet cracked and also began to rise. Ignored by almost everyone in favor of the main action, a heated exchange between two lovers began, culminating in an apology from the man leaving the woman for reasons she could not understand.

"After all," Aizen continued, smiling down at Ichigo, who glared up at him from his knees, "to treat a shinigami, the healer has to be able to sense the patient's reiatsu. You have no one capable of treating him, or even of touching him. The essence of being transcendental, Kurosaki, is of standing alone.

"Good-by, Kurosaki Ichigo. Die peacefully. I have won."

Next to Yamamoto, the boy cursed.

"Jii-san, help me stand."

"I said stay _down,_ child_._ Conserve your strength. He is correct- if I cannot sense your reiatsu, it is unlikely that our healers will be able to. You will need to stay alive until we can find a way to treat you." The captain commander was startled at the familiar name from someone he had met five minutes ago from the wrong side of a sword, but ignored it to deliver the gruff reprimand.

"_Help me up or you'll lose them all!"_ Yamamoto blinked, but reached out to the Ichigo's arm to help haul him to his feet.

"-and don't touch my-" but the boy was too late, as Yamamoto jerked his hand away with a hiss, his fingers burnt nearly to the bone from simply curling around his arm.

"Sorry," he muttered, as he reached out to Yamamoto's shoulder with his covered arm and used it as a crutch, being careful to avoid any contact between bare skin.

"Gin!" he called as loud as he could, standing with one arm over his stomach where his wound was once again beginning to bleed, "I don't know how much of the last fifteen minutes you understood or what you heard, but if you go with him you'll be lucky if he just kills you."

Gin's face was turned towards him, obviously surprised at being addressed under the circumstances by someone who did not know him.

"He's from the future, Gin," Ichigo continued. He abruptly had the undivided attention of everyone on the battlefield, as a number of questions were suddenly answered. "We both are. The Hogyoku brought us back from the moment he died to the moment he first picked it up.

"Your plan worked, Gin. You touched his sword before he could hypnotize you. You stabbed Shinsou through his heart. Your bankai turned into dust," and Gin's eyes went wide, as Ichigo revealed knowledge of his sword that he _could not know_, "and left a sliver in his heart, and your poison dissolved him from the inside out.

"It didn't kill him. He used the Hogyoku to regenerate, and then he stabbed you where you stood," and Ichigo was running out of words, looking for anything he could say to convince the man to avoid his coming death… "and Matsumoto had come after you even though she was badly wounded. You were dead when we left, and she was dying.

"It was a good plan, but it has no chance now that Aizen knows its coming. The Third Division never recovered from losing you, Gin, and she never stopped loving you. Get out of there!" And with that, Ichigo's strength finally ran out. He fell to his knees, blood suddenly gushing from where he had been carved up as the reserves of energy drawn from deep in his soul ran out. Almost absently, Yamamoto picked up the haori of the first division captain from where it had been blown off when he released his sword, and knelt down to press it to Ichigo's stomach to try to keep his blood (what little the boy had left) inside his body. Most of his attention, and the attention of everyone else on Sokyoku Hill, was focused on the silver-haired man risen halfway to the hole in the sky.

Gin's eyes were still wide. He blinked once.

"Well… shit." He drew his sword. "Guess that's that, then. _Shoot to kill, Shinsou_!"

His sword released and he flared his spiritual energy until he was almost painful to look at, and stepped off the rock onto thin air. He stabbed at the barrier of light, funneling all of the energy surrounding him into his sword, until the circle of silver light grew, and pushed, and forced the gold away from the inside. When it was large enough, Gin dove through, and went hurtling through the air while the portal closed after him, leaving only a bare rock in an empty beam of golden light for the Menos to carry.

He landed lightly on the ground. In a single flash-step, Matsumoto Rangiku was in his arms. Two more, and the swords of Hisagi Shuuhei and Tetsuzaemon Iba were at the veins of his throat. He ignored them, and murmured quietly to the woman in his embrace,

"Sorry, Rangiku."

"Idiot." She shook her head, face pressed against his shoulder and tears in her eyes. "You idiot."

"Guess we'll get to play prisoner after all, eh?" He looked up to where Aizen and Tosen still rode their rocks into the sky. "Later, _'Taicho'_."

"You would have been the perfect subordinate, Gin, if you were not a treacherous snake," Aizen said dismissively from the top of the sky. He was almost at the rip in the sky when his attention was drawn to three specific figures from a group running up the staircase of the hill, figures panicked from the recent, abrupt disappearance of their friend's reiatsu.

"Kurosaki-kun!" "Ichigo!" "Kurosaki!" They sped up and raced to Ichigo's side, displacing the Soutaicho without noticing or caring about his rank. Aizen smiled to hear Orihime's frantic cry that she could not heal him.

"Sado Yasutora," he said, drawing everyone's attention back to him as he paused at the entrance of the garganta, "Ishida Uryuu. Inoue Orihime."

"Who's he?" the Quincy asked.

"You told me earlier," Aizen said, "that you knew my weakness, and that you would not lose to me. Should you survive, Kurosaki Ichigo, remember: you also have weaknesses. You gather them around you and hold them close. And I know all of their names."

With that, he and Tosen turned and entered into the Garganta, leaving Soul Society for good and stepping into a brave new world.

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Time stopped for Ichigo as he processed Aizen's threat. That… that was new. He would be targeting people just for their association with Ichigo, and…

Aizen had said once that he had been watching him since before he was born. Presumably, Aizen had known that his father was a shinigami and because of that had kept track of Isshin and his family.

His family.

His _sisters._

"Chad!" He could feel himself fading fast, and knew that he had pushed himself too far, that he should have fallen long ago, and that he had _nothing left_; and Chad had always been at his back, had sworn to always protect what Ichigo wanted to protect-

"I'm here, Ichigo."

"Chad- tell my father- my sisters…" and his voice was weak, and his vision was blacking out, and his tongue was fumbling over the words-

"Tell them yourself, Ichigo. You're going to be fine. Don't talk," and now they thought he was pulling a dramatic deathbed speech, and _fuck that_, and he _found _the strength-

"_My father is a shinigami!_ Tell him what happened, tell him Aizen will go after them! _Tell him to get my sisters to safety!"_ and his hand, somehow, was grabbing- not Chad, because he knew even then that he could not- but the coin on a string that had fallen out of the borrowed shihakusho.

"Please," he whispered. '_Please, Chad, remember our promise, keep it like you always did, I will never want to protect anything more than I want to protect them-'_

"I will, Ichigo."

And he heard the promise, and knew Chad understood what he did not have the strength to say, and finally let go.

His hand dropped. His vision went black.

"Kurosaki-kun!"

"ICHIGO!"

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Byakuya and Soi Fon had been revived easily by the fourth division while Aizen and Tosen were still rising into the sky, leaving Kyoraku and Ichigo the only wounded, and Ichigo the only one critically so. Unohana, arriving on her manta-shaped shikai, was informed by her third seat that the first healer to touch the ryoka had had their fingers burned to the bone trying to take his pulse, and she was able to feel for herself that he had no trace of reiatsu. There was nothing she could do.

She stood at a respectful distance with the rest of the shinigami, including the Soutaicho and all of the captains and assistant captains on the battlefield, while the young man made his goodbyes. His last revelation made everyone's eyes widen.

"He's- the son of an exile?" she asked Ukitake, standing next to her.

"A deserter, probably. Shiba Isshin. It has to be. The resemblance to his cousin is uncanny." He paused, then said, "I woke up when Yamamoto-dono's bankai was attacking us. He was protecting us with his body. For a moment, I thought he was Kaien."

Nearby, Yoruichi bowed her head, holding Kukaku's shoulder as she and Ganju watched silently.

"Let me through!" Rukia said as she shoved her way through the crowd, having run up the staircase to the hill after the assistant captains had flashed-stepped back. She paused next to her brother at the front of the assembled shinigami, staring at the scene.

"No…"

Ichigo's hand fell.

"ICHIGO!" she cried, running to his side, next to the girl who had also screamed his name.

"Dammit, Ichigo, don't do this! Don't you dare die trying to save me!" she yelled, pounding on his bare chest before pulling away with a yelp. She searched for something, anything she could think of to make him cling to life-

Something he would shove a sword into his heart for.

"Your family needs you, Ichigo! Your sisters need you to protect them! Dammit, Ichigo, wake up!"

Somehow, that got a response. His eyes opened, and they were strange, a mixture of black and amber and a gold that Rukia couldn't recognize, but that Byakuya might have if he had been close enough to see it.

"**Protect**-"

"Yes! Karin and Yuzu, Ichigo, they need you to protect them, you need to _stay alive_, don't you dare close your eyes again!"

"**Protect them…**"

He turned his face towards Orihime, kneeling by his side. He raised his left hand towards her face, almost caressing it but not quite touching, not quite burning. His index finger touched the six-pointed blue star in her hair.

"Kurosaki-kun…"

"**I… reject."**

Orihime convulsed, a golden glowing aura forming around her and flowing from her hairpin down Ichigo's arm and to his body.

When he was completely covered in a golden skin, his hand dropped, and Orihime collapsed at his side, unconscious.

Ichigo screamed. He continued screaming while the glow ran down to his sword, funneling into the chain that was still wrapped around his right arm. As the rejection continued down the chain, the links disappeared behind it, until the golden light was completely encased within the sword still tightly gripped in his right hand.

Suddenly, there were two voices screaming, and the sword was growing, twisting and changing, until it formed into a kneeling young man, head thrown back, one hand held tightly within Ichigo's. He had white hair and a black horn rising from a shattered mask on his head, wearing white robes trimmed in black fur. The screaming stopped, and Ichigo was still and silent once again. The newcomer looked down at him, mismatched eyes wide.

"No. NO!" He turned his head, taking in the entire situation at a glance: Orihime unconscious; Rukia, Chad, and Ishida mere feet away and useless, a group of Shinigami watching from farther away-

In an instant he was next to Unohana, gripping her arm. In the next, they were both beside Ichigo, and as Ichigo screamed he pulled Unohana down next to them both and grabbed Ichigo's hand once more.

"HELP HIM!"

"I can't- can't feel his reiatsu-"

"YES YOU CAN!"

She realized he was right; it was there now, where it hadn't been before, but low, so low that there was almost no difference. He was mostly dead.

But mostly dead was slightly alive, and she was the finest healer Soul Society had ever seen.

She got to work, calling out orders to the fourth-division members still in the area and starting a flurry of activity around her, while Ishida carried Orihime over to be checked on by Hanataro. After watching silently for a few minutes, Chad and Rukia went to where Yoruichi stood with Kukaku, Ganju, and the gathered captains.

"Yoruichi-san. I need to go home."

"I heard. I'll be with you; Kisuke can keep his family safe. Captain-commander, can we use-"

She paused as the young man still holding Ichigo's hand screamed once more, and divided into two teenagers. One was a dark-haired young man who, except for the hair color, eye color, robe, and mask, was the double of the original boy. The other looked as though someone had taken an old-fashioned photograph of Ichigo, and then animated the negative film; he was pure white except for the inside of his robe, his lips, and his eyes. His white hair, though, was far longer than Ichigo's own shoulder-length mane. Both teenagers were wearing flared robes, one of black, one of white, and both were carrying daitos. In mirror image, they gasped while clutching their chests, sunk to their knees, and grabbed Ichigo's hands- the dark boy on the right, and the light on the left.

"What did that boy _do_ to himself?" She walked over to where they lay, followed by Soi Fon and Chad. Unohana had just sat back, wiping her brow after her third major healing of the day.

"How is he doing, Unohana-san?"

The healer looked up at her. "He is stabilized enough to be moved. There is a room being prepped for surgery in the fourth division as we speak. We can repair him physically, and we can restore his reiatsu, but when the body is this damaged nothing is certain. However, so long as he himself does not give up on living, I believe he may recover."

"If what we saw today was typical," Yamamoto said, walking up from behind them, "I don't believe we need to be concerned."

"Bastard's too stubborn to die," the albino said, speaking in eerie, echoing tones. "He'd better wake up soon, or I'm going to kill him myself."

"And who are you, boy?" asked Byakuya, as he, Rukia, Ukitake, and the Shibas joined the group surrounding the body.

"I told you already," and the boy looked up, showing eyes of Hollow yellow, "I don't have a name."

Byakuya's eyes narrowed. "You are the creature who took over Kurosaki Ichigo's body when we were fighting."

"He was losing. It was pathetic. I was kicking your ass before he butted in."

"Should you need something to call him, use Tensa Zangetsu," the boy on Ichigo's other side said, also looking up at the people surrounding them.

"And you, young man? What is your name?" Ukitake asked, eyeing him. The boy smiled.

"Tensa Zangetsu."

Suddenly, he shivered, and rapidly aged to an older version of himself, with sunglasses and a tattered cloak. His companion's garb changed to a white version of the shinigami's shihakusho, and his hair shortened to match Ichigo's ragged cut. Both of their swords changed to giant cleavers, one black and one white. On Ichigo's body, the scrap of his bankai coat disappeared.

"Or Zangetsu, as the case may be. Yoruichi," and he nodded to the woman who had seen him just this morning in the underground cavern, "it is good to see you again."

"What has he done to himself, old man?"

"What he needed to, to protect the ones he loves. Unohana-san, where can we take him?"

She pointed to the manta ray descending from where it had been floating above the field, and the man and the boy picked up Ichigo and carried him into its open maw. Before joining them, she turned to Yamamoto.

"Soutaicho, I have never seen that young man before he destroyed the Sokyoku stand this afternoon. I would have bet my life on it," Unohana said, "until I healed him. It is not the first time. From the traces of my reiatsu, it was perhaps ten weeks ago; certainly not more than three months."

Yamamoto nodded, looking after the trio contemplatively. "It is good to have independent confirmation of his words. The boy claims to be from the future."

Chad's eyes widened. _'Ichigo…'_

"We fought earlier today, Captain-commander," Byakuya stated, "and he did not show anywhere near the power that he did just now."

Soi Fon bowed her head, her bangs shadowing her eyes. "How many years must it have been, then, for him to grow so much? For how long will this new war extend?"

"Let's ask!" Yoruichi said cheerfully. She yelled at the manta where it rested on the ground awaiting its mistress. "HEY ZANGETSU! THE KID SAID HE WAS FROM THE FUTURE! HOW FAR?"

"NOVEMBER!"

Soi Fon and Byakuya choked.

"I love that boy!" Yoruichi laughed. She looked at the captain of the sixth division. "Don't look so surprised, Byakuya-bo! You took Rukia's powers away from him. Last month he got his own powers and achieved Shikai. This morning, bankai! Extrapolate the growth curve!" She ruffled his hair while walking past.

"Hey, Unohana, can you heal my hand?" Unohana touched the burn, with Ichigo's handprint easily recognizable, and the finger-marks that no one had been able to see her acquiring faded and disappeared. Without a word, Yamamoto and Rukia extended their hands for the same treatment. Yoruichi turned to Chad, still grinning.

"Come on, kid. Ichigo'll be fine. Unohana's the best there is. Yamamoto-soutaicho, can we use the main senkaimon gate?"

"Pardon me, Yoruichi-san, but I would like to accompany you," Ukitake said, coming to join them. "It will be good to see Isshin again."

"You know him, taicho-san?" Chad asked in bemusement, still a little startled that the goofy doctor who had patched him up several times was a shinigami.

"He was the captain of the seventh division for a few decades, until he was promoted to the royal guard about fifty years ago. Twenty years ago, we received word that he'd deserted during a mission to the human world."

"He met someone he considered worth it just for the chance, and came to Kisuke for a power-draining gigai the very first day," Yoruichi said, smiling sadly. "They took her name when they married. Kurosaki Masaki was an amazing woman. She would have been so proud of Ichigo."

"Mind if we tag along with you?" a voice asked from behind them. Ukitake turned, a smile on his face.

"Shunsui! Should you be up?"

"My Nanao-chan fixed me right up! It's a good thing the kid wasn't wearing any white at all, isn't it?" Behind him, Ise pushed her glasses up and muttered that the fourth division had done most of the work, a slight blush on her face.

"And that the color you called out wasn't black," Ukitake agreed.

Kyoraku looked past Ukitake to Chad, tipping his hat back. "So that's the guy?"

Chad recalled the first time they had met, when he had told Kyoraku that he was risking his life for Rukia because Ichigo was trying to save her. He nodded silently.

Kyoraku gave him a searching gaze, one that made Chad remember just how very dangerous the laid-back man could be. Finally, he gave Chad a nod in return and tipped his hat forward again so that it hid his eyes.

"Looks like he's worth it. I'm glad. Shall we go?"

"I'm coming too, Yoruichi-sama." Soi Fon had seen her mentor's throat ripped out mere minutes after they reconciled, and was still not quite willing to let her out of her sight.

Yoruichi nodded and the six walked away. Chad would be escorted to the living world with an honor guard of a lieutenant and four captain-class shinigami, and Ichigo's family would soon be safe. As Unohana jumped onto the top of her manta-ray, Yamamoto approached the abortive traitor.

Gin and Matsumoto were standing together, his arm around her shoulder and hers around his waist, as they and their guards watched the various dramas playing out before them. Hisagi and Tetsuzaemon had eventually started feeling stupid holding their swords at Gin's neck when he was doing nothing more threatening than grope his girlfriend, and now merely stood at his back with their swords unsheathed. They all straightened to attention as the Captain-Commander approached.

"Gin."

"Yamamoto-soutaicho." His smile was back, and his eyes were once again only slits underneath his eyelids.

"You will be held in the detention block of the first division. You had better have a _damn_ good explanation for this, young'un. Give us the truth of your background and your intentions. If you hold anything back, we will know when we compare your story with the ryoka's. Cooperate, and your punishment will be lessened."

Gin merely continued to smile at him. "I want him dead, Yama-jii. I'll do what I can so ya can kill him." He paused. "Or rather, so tha' the kid can kill him. Kinda scary, isn't he? He's just a teenager, if I'm remembering right. What must the future have been like, ta make him?"

"I hope we never know," murmured Matsumoto, stepping away from him while the other two vice-captains came close and gripped Gin's arms. He smiled over his shoulder at Hisagi.

"Race you to the first division!" and in a blur he was gone, leaving Shuuhei and Iba cursing and flashing after him. After a short pause, Matsumoto dared to question her ultimate superior.

"What will happen to him, Yamamoto-soutaicho?"

Though he frowned slightly at her temerity, the day had been long enough that Yamamoto let it pass.

"We will review his actions to this point. At the very least, he has aided and abetted treason. Kurosaki's testimony, if it bears out, will weigh in his favor, but it is still the word of a ryoka about an event that has never come to pass. The Central-" no, they were dead, and he wouldn't have to worry about them for some time, would he? They were under martial law at the moment. He was in charge. It had been a _very_ long day, for him to have forgotten that.

But _his_ people were alive. They were _all_ alive, even though he had seen five of his finest dead before his eyes.

He felt every one of his years weighing him down at that moment.

"…never mind. If he has not actually killed anyone, if he did not actively participate in the murder of the Central 46, and if he gives us the information we need, then I can be lenient. There are ways of viewing memories, if the person with the memory has a strong enough reiatsu. Both of them qualify. If what the boy said is true, it sounds as though we will need Gin with the Third soon enough."

"…thank you, Captain-commander."

On the other side of the plateau, Rukia bowed, her brother waiting a few paces away. A number of important explanations had been made in the past few minutes.

"I SAID IT'S ALL RIGHT!" Kukaku said, slamming Rukia on the head. The younger woman stared up at her, wide-eyed.

"Ukitake told me everything," she said, turning around and walking a few paces away. "It wasn't your fault. But you've been torturing yourself this entire time. So, I decided long ago that if you ever apologized, I'd forgive you."

Then the one-armed woman looked over her shoulder at Rukia, and said "Besides, it sounds like, if it weren't for you, my younger cousins would have died. If it makes you feel better, consider the debt repaid."

Rukia smiled, tears in her eyes. "Thank you, Kukaku-dono."

"AND DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

And they would all walk into the future together.

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*Translation: "Ban-kai. Yōyū Uchigami (溶融土神)." = "Full release. Melting Earth God."

The name for Yamamoto's bankai was changed from the Google-translator derived Yōyū Chikyū Akuma (Molten Earth Demon) at the suggestion of the reviewer Reikson on Jan. 31, 2011. Thanks for the translation!

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Long Author's Notes (**feel free to skip to the question and teaser at the end**):

Goddamn this chapter was fun to write. When coming up with Yamamoto's bankai, I had to ask myself the question 'how can I make the Badass Grandpa even more badass?' The answer was clearly 'give him a giant indestructible lava dragon'.

If you were wondering why Tosen didn't get a speaking part, don't. There was a lot going on that only Ichigo, Aizen, and Tosen could see and hear. You'll be getting Ichigo's view of the battle in a few chapters. I will try not to make Ichigo as all-knowing about the Bleachverse as the author, but there are two bits of information I have given him that he probably didn't have in canon. The first you've already seen- the entire scene where Gin stabbed Aizen, which I explained by saying that Ichigo was there for longer than Kubo showed. It was kind of critical to the plot of this chapter. The other will be general information about the fights with the 7th and 9th Espada in Hueco Mundo, which I have decided is worth fudging on because of the backstory I gave Isshin in this chapter. Besides those pieces of info, if I seem like I'm giving Ichigo too much knowledge, please let me know and I'll do some edits.

It'll be coming up more in later chapters, but I first brought in this one so I thought I'd mention it: in this story I won't be following the fanfiction convention of referring to Ichigo's hollow as 'Hichigo' or 'Shiro'. It'll either be 'the hollow' or a physical descriptor. When speaking, people may refer to Ichigo's sword as Zangetsu, but in the out-of-speech descriptions he'll either be Zangetsu-no-ossan or, again, a physical descriptor. My reasoning is that, in canon, the _only_ name the hollow has claimed is Zangetsu (i.e., the "I AM ZANGETSU!" in the fight for Ichigo's soul) and he has otherwise seemed uninterested in having one. For this fic I'm taking the view that there are two parts to Ichigo's power, and that power is named Zangetsu.

I would deeply appreciate any comments or critiques you have**. However, even if you don't feel like writing a full review, you can easily help answer a question for me**. I obviously knew when writing the fight scene that everything I was describing was an illusion, and I feel like I left lots of hints, but I *really* want to know when the readers figured it out. To make it as easy as possible, some choices are listed below. Click the review button, type your answer, click submit, and you're done! Feel free to copy and paste. **If you prefer, there is also a poll on my profile.** Percentages will be provided in the next chapter, and I'm enough of a geek that I'll probably keep an ongoing bar chart of the answers.

Multiple choice question of the week: **When did you figure out that the guy the Captains were fighting was Ichigo?**

A) It was obvious. It's Aizen. Of course he had everyone hypnotized.

B) No one would kill off Yoruichi.

C) When Byakuya went down.

D) When Ichigo was described as 'sensible'.

E) When Shunsui's shikai had no effect.

F) When 'Aizen' was talking to Yamamoto.

G) When the lava-dragon attacked.

H) When the hypnosis ended.

I) What? They weren't fighting Aizen?

J) Other; please elaborate.

**Next chapter:** Ichigo has to figure out what to do next. Here's the teaser, as the reward for getting this far:

"You're getting way ahead of yourself, King. Looking forward is all well and good, and it's always nice to have a plan, but you've still got to pull yourself together. And," the hollow said, as he stood up and placed the tip of the white sword over Ichigo's heart, "all this talk is useless if I kill you now."

See you next week!


	3. Chapter 2 Moving Forward

Thank you to everyone who reviewed or filled out the poll at the end of the last chapter. 8% figured it out at the beginning, when Shunsui attacked, or when Yoruichi died. (If I kill her, it'll be way more epic than that. She's awesome.) 17% figured it out when Ichigo 'sensibly retreated', and 58% figured it out when the hypnosis ended. **I encourage new readers to fill out the poll or answer in a review to any chapter.**

Special thanks to the anonymous reviewer Gree, who has left thoughtful, encouraging reviews to both chapters so far. I hope the story continues not to disappoint.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach

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Ichigo felt something pulling him up from the depths of the darkness he was floating in. He remembered pain, and _ripping_, and resisted, not wanting to leave the peace of slumber. The call was unrelenting, however, and he finally blinked and opened his bleary eyes to see a vaguely familiar, smiling face hovering over his own.

"Unohana-san…" he muttered, trying to rub his eyes and finding his wrists restrained. He felt like crap.

"Good morning, Kurosaki Ichigo. You are in the fourth division after taking severe wounds fighting against the rogue captain, Aizen Sosuke, two days ago. Do you remember the fight?"

"Aizen… turned into a butterfly."

Unohana blinked, and looked off to the side. "He's delirious, Zangetsu-san. I would truly prefer that you allow me to put him back to sleep for another day or so."

"No. That actually happened." At the familiar echoing tones, Ichigo managed to push himself up onto his pillows into a semi-seated position, looking around. His hollow was seated next to him, an iron grip on his left wrist. Glancing past Unohana, he saw Zangetsu-no-ossan similarly situated, holding onto his right.

He probably should have been more alarmed that his hollow was free. Somehow, he just couldn't manage the energy.

"Tch. Never thought I'd see your ugly face again," he murmured to his pale double.

"Surprised, King?"

"How do you feel, Kurosaki-san?" Unohana asked, turning his face back towards hers and checking his pupils.

"Tired. Like I can't think. Everything hurts."

"Like, oh, I don't know, you_ ripped your soul apart?"_ the hollow hissed, his grip tightening on Ichigo's wrist until he could feel the bones creaking and grunted, trying to pull away. The pain helped clear his mind, though, and the memories started trickling back. He jerked up in alarm, before collapsing back on the pillows with a groan.

"We came back. We're at the beginning again. Shit. Stupid rock." He closed his eyes, facing the inevitable. "I lost."

"No, Ichigo," his sword said, speaking for the first time, "he retreated. He ran, and we still live. It was not a victory, but we were not defeated."

"Try not to move, Kurosaki-san. Your wounds are not fully healed, and we have not been able to increase your reiatsu at all. Every time we try to restore it, it fades away. Your companions say that you must be conscious to change that." She looked at them all. "Please, try not to strain yourselves. You are still very weak."

"Che. We'll do what we have to," the hollow said sneeringly.

"I said, hollow-san," Unohana repeated with a smile on her face, "_please try not to strain yourselves._"

The pale boy looked at her, wide-eyed and with shivers going down his spine, then nodded almost mechanically. Unohana left the room while Ichigo coughed, managing to stifle the laughter bubbling up from deep within him.

Unohana did not go far. She had informed Yamamoto that she would be waking Ichigo, and a meeting had been called in the fourth division. All eleven of the remaining captains were assembled, including Hitsugaya and Gin, one barely mobile and the other sans sword and white haori. Yoruichi had returned from the living world when the rest of the Shinigami captains did, and was present as Urahara's representative. Together, they watched Ichigo's image on a large screen while Korotsuchi Nemu fiddled with the observational and recording equipment. They had a very powerful unknown quantity lying in that bed, and it was critical that they form an understanding of him quickly. The ethics of listening in on what would essentially be an internal monologue did not enter into the equation.

Unohana had been disturbed to find that Ichigo's room had been installed with the monitors long before his arrival in Soul Society. Mayuri had dismissed her concern by claiming it was a 'necessary precaution'. Quite a few of the captains were now wondering how many 'necessary precautions' the man had taken.

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In his room, Ichigo looked at the older man.

"How come you two are… um…"

"Existing?"

"Yeah. I thought it was permanent."

"It was."

"You _rejected_ us, King. We were one soul again, and you _shoved us out._ _You cut us apart!"_

Ichigo looked at the hollow, confused even through his exhaustion. Something about that just did not compute.

"Isn't this what you wanted? Your own body, separate from me? You don't even like me."

"You call this _separate?"_ the pale boy asked. He opened his shihakusho to reveal a white chest, and removed his hand from Ichigo's wrist for the first time. Ichigo gasped and bent over in pain, feeling his life force draining away as though the hollow had pulled a plug. At his sides, the two men mirrored his actions, and before Ichigo's horrified eyes a hole appeared in the hollow's chest, growing larger with each second.

He grabbed the hollow's wrist. The pain stopped, and the hole shrunk again, leaving them all panting and gasping.

"Don't- don't do that again."

"We were whole," the hollow said quietly. He left his wrist in Ichigo's hand, and his face was devoid of its normal psychotic grin. The two boys had never looked more alike. "We were complete. _We had a heart."_

Ichigo swallowed. "Oh."

"Yeah. _Oh_."

"I'm…" He was a hollow- a hollow that had been given the one thing in its existence that it truly needed, and then had it taken away. "I'm sorry." It didn't seem like enough.

"_Sorry?_ Don't be _sorry_! FIX US!"

Ichigo took a deep breath. Nodded. "Do it."

The hollow thrust the hand not in Ichigo's grip at the dark man across the bed, and the two began to break apart, with the pieces flowing together into a swirling mass above Ichigo's legs- which then separated again, funneling back into their original forms.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" the white Zangetsu screamed at the dark, and for a few moments the air above the bed whirled with struggling pieces of Ichigo's power, until, finally, they both sat back, breathing heavily, but still separated in two.

"We should not merge again."

"WHAT? Our reiryoku is trickling away as fast as we can make it! We can't live like this!"

"Do you remember the feeling behind crossing blades with Aizen?" The question took both of the boys aback, and they actually looked at each other and gave it some thought before Ichigo replied quietly for them both,

"Solitude. He has been on a level of his own from the moment he was born, and has always known it, and has stopped wanting anyone to be able to see from the same viewpoint as him."

"In order to defeat him, we chose to ascend to the state he was struggling to attain," the sword started, before being interrupted by the hollow.

"AND IT WAS FANTASTIC! We were kicking his ass! We were more powerful than him _and_ that fucking rock combined!"

"And when the unexpected happened, we were alone. Our allies could not touch us, our friends could not heal us. If we had approached one of Ichigo's classmates in Karakura, they would have disintegrated. If we had entered Ichigo's body, it would have been destroyed. Is that living?"

"I think you're forgetting, old man, that we're _dying_ here. Our life is trickling out of the cracks in our soul, and _we can't stop it._"

"No. But we can return to what we were before we merged."

The hollow's eyes narrowed. "I doubt that."

"I do not. We can return to his soul as we once were, and live as we did before, and not fall into the trap that Aizen has never climbed out of; that is," and he paused, looking at Ichigo, "if you can accept us back, Ichigo."

"What do I have to do?"

"You know the answer to that." Ichigo realized he did. It wasn't the first time another person had given him their power, after all. He nodded.

"Just like that?" the hollow snorted. "You'll carve your soul up and leave it that way, just like that?"

Ichigo glared at him. "If I could absorb just you, I would."

"I feel special." The hollow sighed theatrically. "Fine. But, King, if we stay like this, you've gotta do something very important."

"What?" Ichigo asked suspiciously.

"You need to get laid."

There was a several-second silence while Ichigo processed that. Then,

"_WHAT?_" as his face went completely red.

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The assembled captains were just as startled as the young man on the screen. In the back, Yoruichi began laughing, and said,

"I'm done here. If he can still blush like that, he's still the kid I know."

"Why the hell would a Hollow care?" Zaraki asked the room in general.

"Hollows are the baser human instincts given intelligence, really. How interesting. I will have to keep them under observation," Mayuri mused, thinking of the research possibilities. Perhaps Nemu…

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"If you're gonna cripple us just to touch the people around you, King, make it worth it! Chicks keep throwing themselves at you, and you just ignore them! It's fucking pathetic!"

"_They do not!"_

"Nel!"

"… THAT'S DISGUSTING!" Ichigo yelled, somehow turning even redder. The hollow hesitated, turning to Zangetsu-no-ossan.

"He's not gay, right? I'd know if he was gay."

"You would know if he were gay," the sword confirmed. He paused, a smile twitching at the edges of his lips. "Probably."

"I'M NOT GAY! SHE WAS A KID!"

"They grow up so fast," the older man said, now visibly fighting laughter.

"I'm just saying, when a girl that hot pulls your face to her chest, you take advantage of it!"

"Just-_ no_. She was like a little-" He froze. He couldn't _believe_ he'd forgotten. "- sister." He looked at Zangetsu-no-ossan, abruptly serious.

"My family?"

"Yoruichi came back yesterday. She and three captains escorted Chad to your family's clinic, and all of them went to Urahara's. Kon is at the Shouten, and your father and sisters are behind barriers that no shinigami or hollow can penetrate."

"Hachi," the orange-haired teen murmured in relief. "Good. That's good. Aizen never found them. Is Chad still with them?" The sword nodded. "He's safe, then. He won't leave them. That leaves Inoue and Ishida. He's still powerless, and Aizen already knows her- they'll be easy targets."

There was an awkward silence. The hollow rolled his eyes and snorted.

"If you won't tell him, I will. The princess is in a coma, King."

"What?"

"When he said that you rejected us, Ichigo, he meant that literally. Her Shun Shun Rikka were originally born from your power, and responded to your desires when you called. They drained both of you completely to separate us from your soul. Orihime is unconscious, and when she wakes up she will be weakened for quite some time."

"She- no way. She's done so much more than that, she _brought me back to life!_"

"Rejecting damage to a nearly-dead body is far different from causing damage to a soul. Orihime does not contain within her the power of a million zanpakutos. She is not a god." Unspoken was the implication that it would take at least that much power to affect their soul, and that the power had come from somewhere. The Shun Shun Rikka had drained them _both_.

"Shit." Ichigo swallowed. "Tatsuki's gonna kill me." He looked at the avatars of his power, hoping for hope. "Will she get better?"

"The longer she is in Soul Society, the faster she will recover her powers. If she is around you and your reiatsu, her recovery will speed up even more, but Hanataro said it will be several months at best until she is at full strength."

"Oh." Ichigo took a few deep breaths. Focus. Losing Orihime's healing talent was bad, but if she was in Soul Society she wouldn't be targeted. Maybe. And if she wanted to go back to the human world- could he protect her?

"Ishida. I can't- he's too stubborn, there's no way he'll stay here if he's powerless."

"Pot and kettle, King."

"Shut up."

"Your focus is too narrow, Ichigo. Do you believe Aizen will only target those three?"

No. Shit.

"Everyone who was awake in Karakura…" Ichigo gave a half-hearted chuckle. "It's not hard to pick out my friends, is it?"

"Your _body_, Ichigo."

Oh.

Right.

He'd kind of forgotten about it, actually. Hadn't been in it since they'd left for Hueco Mundo, and there had been the three months in the Precipice World… what would happen to him if it died? He voiced the question.

"We'd probably be even more fucked up than we already are," was the hollows' considered opinion.

"There is no way of telling. However, because you are connected to your body, because you spend a significant amount of time in it, you are still human. Living souls are malleable; they have no limits like the plus souls do. They can grow, and change. Killing your body would limit your potential significantly."

Ichigo could feel his mind wandering as the long-winded explanation continued. No matter what his sword said, his body was the least of his worries right now. There were too many people to guard, too many potential weaknesses, and he had to assume that Aizen knew them all, the bastard seemed to know _everything_, and there was only one of Ichigo, he couldn't be everywhere-

"At the same time, though, your body is your greatest vulnerability. You will have to go back to it soon, and if you are attacked when you are trapped in it you would retain any injuries it sustained. Aizen may leave it alone until you occupy it just for that potential opportunity-"

It had been so much _simpler_ when it was just him and Aizen.

Wait.

It was still that simple.

There was only one of Aizen. There was only one of him.

Abandon your fear.

"This is wrong," he realized, cutting the zanpakuto off.

"What?"

"This is what he wants. Us distracted. Us reacting to him. It's all we've _ever _done. Defending Karakura, following Rukia and Orihime. Making plans to protect everyone I've ever met." Ichigo looked at his pale double. "You're a hollow."

"You noticed?"

"Do you think you can figure out how to make a Garganta?"

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The captains had been following the exchange closely, gathering data and forming opinions. That question made a number of eyes narrow, and revised several people's thoughts on the advisability of the hollowification Ichigo had undergone. Yoruichi, the only person who had spent any significant amount of time with Ichigo, was the most startled.

Assassination.

She had been the Onmitsukido commander, so it wasn't like she had a problem with it, but the kid hadn't seemed like the type.

What had changed over the last months of his life?

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It wasn't the hollow who responded, but the sword.

"You wish to attack him directly? Now?"

"_We can't guard everyone_. If we give him enough time, he'll figure out a way to stop us, like jii-san. He couldn't sense our reiatsu when we were merged; he won't know we've come to Hueco Mundo. There's never gonna be a better time. We heal, we combine, we go after him." He looked to his left, where his hollow's wrist still rested in his hand. "Well?"

"I'll need the body." His grin widened at the look Ichigo gave him. "Gotta practice, King. We won't get it right on the first try."

Finally, Ichigo nodded. "I'll be watching you." He looked to his right. "Well, ossan?"

"Kyoka Suigetsu. We need to make sure we cannot see his shikai." With his free hand, Zangetsu-no-ossan pulled off his sunglasses. They shimmered, and suddenly were a completely opaque black visor that he tossed onto Ichigo's bandaged stomach.

"You want me to fight Aizen _blindfolded_? My reiatsu sensing isn't that good."

"Get better." The sword's tone was dry and uncompromising. "If you wish to do this, learn to fight blind, Ichigo. If we see his release and live through the battle, then the next time he is on the field we will be attacking our allies as the Soutaicho did two days ago, and no-one present will survive."

"Can he even affect us when we're whole?"

"Do you wish to take the chance?"

The hollow laughed. "If justice-boy can do it…"

Ichigo picked up the visor, turning it over in his right hand despite the swords' grip on his wrist. "We'll need to train, then. Right now, everyone Aizen saw in Karakura is out of town on vacation, and he can't be sure I'm still alive. They should be OK until school starts. It _might_ take about that long for Hiyori to start trying to kill Goat-face." He looked at his hollow. "Can you do it by then?" The answer was an uncaring shrug.

"If he cannot, we will know in time to ask Urahara or Mayuri."

"No! We need to go alone."

The hollow snorted. "Did you think we wouldn't be? _We're in the past._ No one knows you, and two days ago we beat the crap out of half of their captains with one hand holding our stomach together. They'll throw you a going-away party and hope you and Aizen kill each other off."

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"…I don't like him."

"He is not incorrect, though. It is why we called this meeting."

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"He is correct, at least, in that your usual companions would not join you," the zanpakuto stated. "Rukia, Ishida, and Orihime are powerless. Chad is with your family, and Renji is injured. The others have only been your opponents, or have not met you yet. They have all seen Aizen's shikai, and would be a liability. After the disaster two days ago, it is not likely anyone would attempt to insist. Going through the shinigami would not change your plan. It would just make it more difficult to leave Hueco Mundo."

Ichigo winced. Ikkaku, Zaraki, Byakuya- they'd stood together against quite a few things that hadn't happened yet, and now they only knew him from the invasion. Yumichika he had barely exchanged a few words with before the effeminate man chased after Ganju. Toshiro and Matsumoto didn't know him at all.

"Right. I'd forgotten."

The hollow rolled his eyes as his sword unwrapped itself and he used it to nudge Ichigo's hand off of his wrist.

"You're getting way ahead of yourself, King. Looking forward is all well and good, and it's always nice to have a plan, but you've still got to pull yourself together. And," the hollow said, as he stood up and placed the tip of the white sword over Ichigo's heart, "all this talk is useless if I kill you now."

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Ukitake, Kyoraku, and, surprisingly, Kuchiki Byakuya were instantly on their feet with drawn swords.

"STOP!" came Yamamoto's voice before they could shunpo out of the room.

"Look at his zanpakuto."

The older man was watching the scene calmly- as calmly as the orange-haired teen underneath the tip of the blade.

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"This sword can't hurt me," Ichigo said quietly, looking up the hollow.

"Are you sure, King?" The only part of the hollow that was touching Ichigo now was the tip of the sword on his chest and Ichigo's left hand on the cutting edge of the blade, but it was apparently enough to prevent their life-force from draining away. He looked down at Ichigo with his usual wide grin.

"Before, Ichigo, you absorbed all of your power at once. Can you accept each separate part?"

"What do you mean?"

"We told you once, in the Precipice World. You can't hollowify properly. You fear transforming into a form where your heart is overwhelmed by your own destructive power. You became one with Tensa Zangetsu to fight Aizen. For the first time, you had access to all of our power and all of our abilities. And then you only used half of them. You fought as a shinigami. Always _Getsuga_, never _Cero_."

"So?"

"_We. Can. Regenerate."_ The hollow placed slightly more weight on the sword, though not enough to break the skin. "We could have been, _should_ have been, just as indestructible as butterfly-boy. If you had been able to heal yourself on Sokyoku Hill, the entire war would have ended there. It wouldn't have mattered if Aizen threw every captain in the Gotei 13 at us, he would have died.

"Do you remember the fight with Ulquiorra Ciffer yet, King?"

Ichigo didn't answer.

"We were both there, but neither of us was in control. That creature was your deepest, darkest instincts. We were a mindless beast. And we _still_ won. We didn't win because we surprised him, or because we tricked him. We won because we were more powerful. We hit harder. We moved faster. We healed better. _We were the scarier monster._

"Understand that, Ichigo. Learn to use it. Accept that you are a hollow. Or I will drive this sword into your heart, and you will die."

Ichigo's eyes were calm and confident. Aizen would have recognized them.

"I am human."

"That really ain't the thought you should be having here, King. If you die, so do we."

"Che." The hand on the edge of the blade tightened and jerked. The cleaver sunk into his flesh without resistance. There was no blood.

"You talk too much. Always have."

"Huh." The hollow looked down at where his feet were dissolving. "I guess that answers that, then. Partner." His eyes met Ichigos.

"Abandon your fear. Look forward."

The reply rose from the depths of Ichigo's healing soul.

"Go forward. Never stand still."

The grin got a bit wider as the hollows' face and sword dissolved.

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"He's a creepy kid."

Despite the source, whom he had been studiously avoiding ever since he had woken up, Hitsugaya Toshiro couldn't help but agree.

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"Well done, Ichigo." The swords' voice was quieter than he had ever heard it, and there was a smile lingering at the corner of his lips.

The teenager shrugged and closed his eyes, leaning back onto the pillows. He was so tired.

"He was almost nice. He contributed. It was weird."

"When we were merged, your thoughts were ours. In the end, you chose to protect us in return. Both of us. He remembers."

"… was it selfish, ossan?"

"You found your answer when you made the choice, Ichigo. Don't look back."

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Finally the older man spoke.

"You asked him once, when he first appeared, who he was. Do you know yet?"

Ichigo blinked out of the half-dozing state and looked to his right.

"My inner hollow."

The zanpakuto just looked back at him.

"My mask?"

"If you did not have a better answer than that, you would have died. Both times. Understanding is the key to acceptance."

"You sound like a fortune cookie, old man," Ichigo said, closing his eyes again. Zangetsu-no-ossan let the silence stretch, making it a waiting game. He had the patience of solid steel. He had to, to deal with his wielder. The result was a foregone conclusion.

Ichigo sighed, giving in. Tensa Zangetsu had already told him the answer, after all.

"The source of my despair."

He recalled a lecture on kings and horses, and the first time the pale boy had shoved a sword into his stomach.

"My love of fighting."

Half-remembered nightmares of ripping a winged Espada apart.

"Everything I hate about myself; everything I am afraid of becoming."

Shoving a sword through his pale double's stomach in retaliation, then being told not to die before he came back.

"An enemy I cannot kill. A distorted reflection."

"Then why take him in?"

"…part of me." The teen's eyes were downcast- a quiet, contemplative golden-brown.

The sword nodded, the slight smile returning. He went forward.

"The shinigami will ask for information of the future. What will you do?"

"What? Answer them. Why wouldn't I? It's not like it'll happen now."

"All of it? Can you condemn men for actions that have not occurred?"

"…Amagai and Kariya?"

Zangetsu-no-ossan nodded.

"They'll put him in as captain again. The fifth, if they keep Gin in the third. I liked him." Ichigo closed his eyes again. "I won't be able to talk to him. I'll be in school when he's appointed." He did not mention the other possibility. Either way, he would not be around.

"And so?"

"Tell Gramps anyway, maybe? He didn't seem to hold a grudge, and the guy seemed like a good captain. Kariya-" Ichigo rubbed his forehead. "…yeah, I'm OK with that. He's probably already started. If they head him off early they might save some of his people."

"And the rest?"

"Anything about the war. Aizen's Extinguir and the espada. Gin might be able to tell them about the ones he has now. I wonder what number Don Panini was?" Aizen had made his own version of the Hogyoku, hadn't he? When had he started creating his army? Nel had been wandering the desert for a long time, and Nnoitra had known her, but what about the others?

"And those weird forgetting-hollows, I guess, though I dunno if it'll help. They'll forget anything I tell them."

"The Royal Seal?"

Ichigo paused, and thought about it for a second. "…no. That's too- no. Toshiro wouldn't want us to. I'll tell him, and let him decide what to do. We can back him up if he needs it, or go after him if he tries to go off alone again."

"He has never met you. He will not want your help."

"So?"

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A number of considering glances were now being thrown at the youngest captain. Hitsugaya, for his part, was staring wide-eyed at the screen. Had they been _friends_?

"… that's Hitsugaya-taicho," he murmured.

"I will be expecting a full report, Hitsugaya-taicho."

Shit.

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The silence that fell between them this time was much less comfortable. Ichigo's left hand fisted the sheets while a name floated unspoken between them.

"…do we let Byakuya take care of it?"

"If you can manifest me again after we come together, I can find him. There will be no need to involve the shinigami."

"He might not believe us. He loved him."

"He heard you, in the end. We can give him a chance."

Muramasa.

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"Well, I'm lost. How about the rest of you?" Shunsui asked cheerfully.

"… is he going to continue to address me by my given name?"

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Ichigo cast his mind over the coming few months, trying to think through the haze of exhaustion. He just couldn't get past the feeling that he was forgetting something, something big. He remembered a brief conversation with Rukia, sharing information before the fight with Yammy- was that it?

"The Novena espada, whats-its-name. What do I tell the Shibas? Rukia and Ukitake-san?"

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Ukitake stiffened. There was only one man that linked all three of those names, a man that had been greatly in his thoughts the past two days. From the concerned looks Kyoraku and Unohana were giving him, they had also made the connection.

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"They cannot do anything. We can find it when we go to Hueco Mundo."

"Aizen may not even make it an arrancar again. We don't know when he made them or what he'll change."

"Then we hunt. Gillians die easily."

"… Rukia was so _proud_." Ichigo swallowed, the enormity of the situation suddenly catching up with him. "Everything we fought for, every victory, just… gone. Erased."

"The bad is gone with the good. No one has bled, no one has died. We have the knowledge and the power to prevent it. Move forward." The sword's tone was unsympathetic and matter-of-fact.

Ichigo was trying not to hyperventilate, since breathing kind of hurt. "It's a little hard to do that when we're _living in the past_!"

A slither of white ribbon, a flash of black sword.

"Retreat and you will age."

Ichigo stared down at his chest in shock, the incipient breakdown averted.

"WHAT THE HELL! WHAT KIND OF GUY JUST GOES AROUND STABBING PEOPLE!" he yelled, pointing at the man dissolving from the feet up. "EVEN THE HOLLOW WARNED ME!"

Zangetsu-no-ossan smiled down at him.

"I have never doubted my welcome in your heart, Ichigo."

Their gazes met as the sword's chest and hilt disappeared. Ichigo's lips twitched up in response.

"Hesitate and you will die," he answered.

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It was an intensely personal moment, and all of the observers except Gin, Kenpachi, and Mayuri looked away in discomfort. Kenpachi in particular had no concerns about privacy. Just a week ago, this pair had given him his best fight in years. Now, they had been fighting together for far longer. He glanced down at the blade at his side.

'_Will you tell me your name?'_

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He was complete. Not whole, not yet, he was still only the sum of his parts; but he could feel the cracks in his soul healing and the steady feeling of his life trickling away ceasing. There were more words rising, words that he had always known and never remembered: the phrase that would bring all of his power to its first release.

His right hand curled around an invisible hilt. His left hand reached across his face. He _pulled_.

"_Cleave the eternal heavens asunder, ZANGETSU!"_

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The captains felt a new reiatsu flare nearby, a mixture of dark and light, shinigami and hollow. It was weak, but then the boy was still half-dead. On-screen, a giant cleaver had appeared in his right hand. Half of the width, the cutting edge, was pale silver. The other half was dark grey. On Ichigo's face a mask had appeared. It had a white base, with thick black markings running down the length of the face over the eyes.

He pulled the mask off and looked at it contemplatively, then placed it on the bed next to him. After attempting to reach over and put the sword up against the wall, and then wincing and stopping the movement, he left it next to the mask. He immediately dropped off to sleep with one hand on his mask, while the ribbon on the end of the sword moved to curl up around his arm until it reached the shoulder.

Nemu turned off the feed to the monitors and, at her father's gesture, left the room.

"Well," Unohana murmured, "that was… educational."

"Shihoin Yoruichi," the Soutaicho rumbled, "are you satisfied?"

"Yes, Yamamoto-soutaicho. Kisuke will work with your men to stop Aizen. I'll need the recording of this session, and we'll need free access to any information Ichigo provides."

"And who will you share that information with, Shihoin?"

"What?"

Yamamoto slammed the tip of his cane down to the floor. "Don't take me for a fool, young'un! A boy with a hollow, who said the names of two assistant captains hollowified a century ago, and knows of barriers that no shinigami can pass!" Yoruichi winced internally. She had been hoping that no-one had picked up on the brief mentions of the Vizard that Ichigo was clearly familiar with. Yamamoto continued, "How many of them are there?"

Yoruichi leaned casually against the back wall opposite Yamamoto, in studied contrast to the formal lines and rigid stances of the ten captains lining the room between them. "Hachigen and Hiyori have been hiding from the Gotei 13 for a hundred years. Why do you think I would tell you anything about them?"

"Please, Yoruichi," Shunsui asked quietly, "is Lisa alive?" Yoruichi hesitated, and then nodded once.

"And if the vice captains survived, surely the captains did too," Ukitake murmured, remembering old friends long thought dead from the encroaching hollowification.

"And what do you intend to do about it?"

"Haven't we gotten rather far from the point of this meeting?" Komamura rumbled.

"Not really," Yoruichi said coldly. "Ichigo has an inner hollow. He is clearly in control over it. The transformation was an accidental side effect of the procedure to reach his own shinigami powers; he did not deliberately seek out hollowification. The last time this happened, the Central 46 chose to deal with them like any other hollow. This might be a good time to discuss this century's judgment on that, don't you think?"

" 'In-control' is debatable. The hollow temporarily succeeded in taking over the boy's body in our fight two days ago. Kurosaki has also apparently lost his mind in at least one fight," Byakuya pointed out.

"For him, though, your fight was months ago. He has the ability to remove his hollow, and keeps it only because he is choosing to limit his power greatly. He is far more comfortable with his sword's presence," Unohana replied.

"Kinda sounds like it would've been better if he'd been more comfortable with the hollow, doesn't it?" Gin asked. "Besides, it's not like ya can do anything about it. We need the kid. The only question is whether we help him or throw that going-away party."

That brought the discussion to a crashing halt.

"And if you choose not to help him, he'll come home with me," Yoruichi said. "He's not an assassin. Either Soi Fon or I will have three weeks to change that." She thought for a moment. "And, if I let him know that the price for the safety of his little sisters is the information he can provide, I'll have his life story in seconds. It's not really your choice. He clearly doesn't consider himself to be under your command."

"I am not comfortable with that. His loyalty is uncertain, his power is beyond our comprehension, and he will not be directed by us. It is not the place of a sixteen-year-old to decide what we need to know," Soi Fon stated. She did not wish to oppose Yoruichi, but it had to be said. The boy was a loose cannon.

"He was going to tell us everything until his sword suggested otherwise, though, and it is very encouraging that they have such a strong bond," Unohana pointed out. "He obviously listens to those he trusts. He is still alive, and very young. Loyalty to organizations and abstract concepts is difficult at any age. Loyalty to friends is much easier, and we have already seen what he will do for them. He is clearly on good terms with quite a few of our officers."

"His 'friends', however, don't know him in return," Hitsugaya said stubbornly. "Those feelings will fade. We cannot rely on loyalty to friendships that do not exist."

"Don't count on it, kid," Yoruichi smirked. "Rukia told him to get lost more than once. Congratulations, you have a friend. I wouldn't try doing anything without him on that Royal Seal thing."

"It does sound like the next few months will be eventful, doesn't it?" Ukitake murmured, seizing on the opportunity to turn the conversation to what the boy would offer them. "Can we see that section of the conversation again?" Mayuri complied, grumbling that he should have kept his daughter in the room.

"We're at war, and down two captains," Zaraki grinned, looking forward to the upcoming battles. "Looks like people will be coming out of the woodwork to challenge us."

"Does anyone recognize the names he mentions?"

"I have an Amagai under my command," Soi Fon said. "He's a Patrol Corps leader, currently on a long-range mission. He is one of my strongest men; he might be able to pass the captain's proficiency test."

"Promoting someone from the Patrol Corps to captain would be unprecedented, though," Komamura said. "Would things have changed that much?"

"I believe we may not have many other options. The most powerful of our graduates from the Academy in this century were promoted through the ranks very rapidly," Shunsui murmured, carefully not looking at Gin and Hitsugaya. "A hundred years ago, we lost seven captains and four lieutenants to hollowification or exile. Several since then have either died or gone to the Zero Divison. I rather think we have depleted the forces of any potential captain-class fighters already. Does anyone else have a subordinate they believe deserves promotion?"

There was a brief silence, in which Kenpachi decided to keep silent about his suspicions about Madarame Ikkaku, before Kuchiki Byakuya spoke.

"My vice-captain has attained the final release. However, it was quite recently, and he is not skilled in its use. I do not recommend that he be promoted for another several years."

"Very well," Yamamoto said, having listened to the discussion and coming to his own conclusions. "Soi Fon-taicho, begin a thorough background check on your man. If the objections Kurosaki mentioned can be overcome, he will still be considered."

"And Kurosaki himself?" Komamura asked.

"Mayuri-taicho. Monitor him until we know everything he is not going to tell us," Yamamoto ordered. Yoruichi stirred, then decided to keep silent. She was curious too, and they might be able to use whatever information Ichigo was holding back. She could warn him not to discuss the Vizards the next time they were alone. Yamamoto continued, "Fit him to a projector when he is strong enough. Gin, you will be using one as well." The probationary captain nodded.

Yamamoto hesitated, remembering a black dome protecting two men he loved against his own power, and an opponent who took his place under a deadly kido. He made his decision. "Soi Fon-taicho, plan on giving him Onmitsukido training. Shihoin, you may join her if you wish. The rest of you may allow him to renew whatever friendships he had with yourselves or your subordinates."

He waited for a minute. No one spoke.

"Dismissed!"

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Author's Note (**teaser at the end**):

I know that Ichigo doesn't have a release phrase in canon, or if he does then it's probably the 'look forward, go forward' sequence that came up in a couple of times in the manga and anime and that I worked into the scenes here. (I've seen a bunch of translations of those phrases; I chose the one I liked best, not one that was probably the most accurate). However, I really want him to have a kick-ass release phrase, something comparable to 'reduce all of creation to ashes' or 'reign over the frosted heavens'. 'Cleave the eternal heavens asunder, Zangetsu' was the best one I could come up with that fit in with his attack names. Since he's always in Shikai, it won't come up often.

In order to head off the no-doubt-numerous-and-rabid hollow/Nel fans, allow me to reiterate: there will be no pairings except for the canon ones, which I only consider to be Gin/Matsumoto and past Byakuya/Hisana and Isshin/Masaki. (Kubo really doesn't like writing romance, does he?) The hollow's desire for Ichigo to have sex is destined to be unfulfilled in this fic.

With regards to Orihime: I like her as a character. I really do. She develops a lot over the course of the manga. She will wake up in a couple of chapters, and will have a speaking part greater than just the 'Kurosaki-kun' that she got in chapter one. That being said: yes, she is in a coma, and yes, she will be powerless for the duration of the fic. I had two reasons. First, and by far the most important, was that there had to be major consequences from Ichigo splitting his soul again. Otherwise, there would be no reason for me not to simply have Ichigo merge and split apart at will, and then if he didn't it would be because he was holding the Idiot Ball. Second is that by the end of the Hueco Mundo arc she was too powerful. What she did when resurrecting Loly (which Zangetsu-no-ossan doesn't know about) was just ridiculous. I wanted to take away Tite Kubo's little get-out-of-death-free card.

Next time: Reactions and revelations. The teaser:

"_Why_, Kurosaki? If the shinigami have a civil war starting, let them fight it! Three days ago we were fighting everyone here! Why are you the one defending Soul Society! How did this become a grudge match between the two of you?"

See you next Saturday!


	4. Chapter 3 Theories of Power

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/favorited/alerted the story!

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

After another healing session the next day, Ichigo escaped from his room and tracked down Hanataro, who had been reinstated to his position with all charges dropped. The mousy young man seemed a bit intimidated by him, which saddened Ichigo a bit. He wasn't sure what rumors were going around, but they probably at least mentioned the whole bit about knocking out four captains in five minutes. He got a health update and a room number for Orihime and came in to find that Ishida was already there.

Ichigo stopped short in the doorway. The last time the three had been together…

He knew that eventually he would remember. One day his nightmares would go to the end, past ripping apart Ulquiorra, and he would watch himself stab one of his best friends.

It hadn't happened yet. It never would. He would learn to control the transformation. His instincts would never rule him again. Go forward.

"Kurosaki." Ishida pushed his glasses up his nose. "I'm glad to see you've pulled yourself together."

"I'm going to be hearing that joke a lot, aren't I?" he asked as he took the seat next to Ishida.

"Your… sword said that you had come back from the future."

"Yeah. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you got your powers back." Ishida's head jerked up and impossible hope flashed across his face. It almost made Ichigo feel bad about what he was going to say. Almost.

"The bad news is, you never told me how," he finished, smirking. Ishida looked at him in shock, then down at his clenched fist, eye twitching.

"_Kurosaki…_"

"Hey, it's not my fault! You decided to do your mysterious 'I'm a Quincy' thing, avoided us at school for a while, then suddenly show up at Urahara's better than ever."

"You're enjoying this!"

"Yeah, you were a jerk and it's come forward to bite you in the ass." He softened. "At least you know it's possible, right?"

"…yes." Ishida bowed his head.

"Inoue might be able to reject the damage if you can't figure out what you did the first time. She doesn't really heal like the shinigami do, and she could do some pretty weird stuff. It's worth a try."

"When she has her own powers again, you mean."

"…yeah." They sat in silence for a minute.

"Do they know how long it will be until she wakes up?"

"Hanataro thought a couple of more days, but said that there isn't any way to be sure. The old man said she would recover faster if she was around my reiatsu. I'll be here a lot."

"How long after that until we can go home?"

Ichigo didn't answer.

"Kurosaki?"

"… did you hear Aizen? He was threatening you."

Ishida snorted. "I'm not going to hide here just because the Shinigami kicked a couple of their captains out, Kurosaki. I think he'll have bigger problems."

"This isn't a little argument, Ishida! It's a war! He has people you won't stand a chance against even when you get your powers back, and he'll send them after all of you!" The Quincy just looked at him stubbornly. Ichigo sighed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

"Zangetsu-no-ossan said Orihime will heal better in Soul Society, and I know you won't leave her. Can you wait until school starts? This will be over by then."

"Why do you think that?"

Ichigo bowed his head, letting his new hair growth shadow his eyes. "I'm going to make sure of it." Zangetsu, both of them, was right. There was no point in hiding his intentions. His human friends couldn't accompany him, and the shinigami couldn't see past Aizen's illusions and probably wouldn't want to join him anyway.

"_WHAT?"_

Ichigo met his eyes, letting his resolve show. "He doesn't threaten my people. Not now that I can stop him. He dies. I'm going after him as soon as I've healed and learned to fight blind."

Ishida stared at him in shock. This was not the boy he knew, the boy he (reluctantly, and only in his own mind) called friend. That boy would never cold-bloodedly plan to hunt a man down. What had happened to him?

"_Why_, Kurosaki? If the shinigami have a civil war starting, let them fight it! Three days ago we were fighting everyone here! Why are you the one defending Soul Society! How did this become a grudge match between the two of you?"

Unohana and Ukitake, who had come looking for Ichigo, stopped suddenly in the doorway, with Mayuri nearly colliding with their backs. Out of the mouths of babes… They had questioned his loyalties, they had questioned his powers, they had questioned his information, but they had not wondered why he was fighting their enemy. In the fresh shock of the betrayal, it seemed natural that everyone would hate Aizen- but a human teenager whose only strong tie to Soul Society had been a shinigami they were trying to execute? Both teens were sitting faced away from the door and didn't notice their reiatsu signatures in the heat of their discussion as Ukitake motioned for the other two to back away from the entrance.

"He's not going after Soul Society," Ichigo answered quietly. "He's going after Karakura."

Ishida looked at him, eyes wide. "W- why?"

"There's a guy called the Spirit King. I don't know much about him other than that Aizen wants to overthrow him and that he lives in a separate dimension. The only way to get to the dimension is by using something called the King's Key, and only Gramps… Yamamoto-soutaicho… knows where it is. But Aizen knows how to make a replacement. It needs living souls. A lot of them, and a piece of land with a lot of spirit energy." He had been staring at the floor between his chair and Orihime's bed, but now he looked up and returned Ishida's gaze. "Before the rock brought us back, we were fighting on an open area near the west side of town, and a lot of people had gone down trying to stop him from getting that far."

"Oh."

Ichigo nodded.

"Gin has informed us of Aizen's intentions, Kurosaki-san," Ukitake said, entering the room at last, "but thank you for confirming his story. He said that the Aizen had not given him the intended target."

"Ukitake-san!"

"You know him, Kurosaki?"

"I am Ukitake Jushiro, captain of the thirteenth division. Kuchiki Rukia is one of my subordinates. Thank you for your efforts on her behalf, Ishida-san." Ishida pushed his glasses up his nose again and looked away, uncomfortable with gratitude from a shinigami captain. Especially one with a reiatsu as mature as that of the man standing before him; despite his deceptively young-looking face, Ishida knew there was an excellent chance that he had been a leader in the near-complete eradication of the Quincy race two hundred years ago. Ukitake then looked at Ichigo. "And, though we have not met formally, you appear to know me already, Kurosaki Ichigo. Thank you for guarding us against the dragon."

Ichigo shrugged, saying "No problem. Sorry about knocking you out and all. Is Kyoraku all right?"

Ukitake blinked at the casual dismissal of the full-on attack of Soul Society's most powerful zanpakuto, but answered in the affirmative, and then asked "Have you seen Yamamoto-soutaicho's bankai before, Kurosaki-san?" Ichigo shook his head.

"Ah. Good. He has not brought it out on the battlefield for centuries; he cannot, unless he is willing to sacrifice anyone on his side who cannot withstand his spirit pressure. It is comforting to know that things had not gotten that far."

"Um… it had."

Ukitake frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Now that I've seen the dragon, I think I know why he didn't use it. He'd had a long time to plan for the battle. I think he knew that if he used his bankai, Aizen would have done what he did a couple of days ago, and he'd just have been attacking the rest of you. You should've seen what he did instead." Ichigo shook his head, remembering the astounding courage and determination the old man had shown; _planning_ to be stabbed through the stomach and immolate himself and his enemy and everyone around him… he'd have to let them know about the little retarded Arrancar and what his ability had been.

"Actually, that is a perfect lead-in to a request we have to make of you, Kurosaki-san," Ukitake began, gesturing Mayuri and Unohana into the room. Ichigo looked from Ishida, who was glaring at the clown-faced captain in hatred, to Mayuri, who was returning the glare with interest, and carefully moved to break their lines of sight, facing Mayuri. The warning was clear.

"Have you ever used a memory projector?" Ichigo shook his head. "Are you familiar with the kikanshinki, the memory modifiers that are standard issue for shinigami in the real world? Well, one of the Research and Development Institute's modifications of the technique allows the memory that is called up to be projected, rather than altered. The clarity of the projection depends on the user's reiatsu, however. Most shinigami would only be able to produce a faint mist. You should be able to project considerably more, if you are willing to use it. It would greatly help our understanding of the war you have lived through if we were able to see the events with our own eyes."

"Sure, that sounds…"

"Would it modify his memories in any way?" Ishida interrupted, standing up and coming around Ichigo.

"It is perfectly safe! Only the first test subjects went insane!" Mayuri snapped, glaring at the Quincy.

Ichigo blinked. "Um…"

Ukitake coughed lightly. "The technology was developed decades ago, and only the components that allow the retrieval of a memory are the same as the ones in the memory modifiers. The user keeps the full memory of the events. Ichimaru Gin has already taken possession of a projector in order to provide information on Aizen's activities in Soul Society, and has used it without any ill effects. If you agree, in fact, one of the first memories we will ask you to show us are the actions you described to him on Sokyoku Hill. Aside from his deception of everyone with regards to his sword and his abrupt desertion of Aizen, it is the only evidence that we have that shows he entered Aizen's service with intent to betray him."

Although Ichigo wasn't sure that Gin's mental stability was the best indicator that the device was safe, he trusted Ukitake. "OK."

"Thank you, Kurosaki-san. If your spirit pressure is recovered, we can begin immediately."

Ichigo took stock of his reiatsu levels and compared them with what he remembered from his trip through the Garganta with Unohana, three months ago in his own personal reckoning. "I'm at about half, I think. Will that be enough?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Kurosaki-san. Kotetsu-fukataicho informed me that she restored your reiatsu before continuing the healing on your stomach, and we can all feel you," Unohana chided, her gentle smile fading a bit. Ichigo avoided her gaze, slightly embarrassed.

"That's… a common mistake, yeah. She'd helped me up from almost zero, and she was still going to work on my stomach. She seemed tired. When she stopped I didn't want to ask her to keep going." And, like Hanataro, she'd seemed kind of intimidated by him. He didn't know if it was because of the battle with Aizen, which Isane would only have heard about, or because of him knocking her out right after rescuing Rukia.

Smile now completely gone, Unohana stepped forward and placed her middle three fingers on Ichigo's temple. She began the kido to restore reiatsu, which was normally the first step in a healing but which had of necessity been left until almost last in Ichigo's case. Her eyes widened as she felt it take hold, indicating that her patient's reiatsu was significantly lower than his norm. He had been at a captain's level already…

"I can feel traces of my reiatsu within yours, Kurosaki-san, and they match to the same kido I am performing now. Have I restored your reiatsu before?"

"Yeah, three months ago. My reserves were at about this level then, too. I can let you know when to stop."

A few minutes later, Ichigo sighed as he felt his power get up to where it had been the last time Unohana restored it. "Thank you, Unohana-san." When he tried to move away, however, she did not let him, keeping her fingers connected to his temple.

"The kido is not finished, Kurosaki-san."

"I'm at full strength- it's fine."

"Indulge me." There was a hint of _that voice_ in the two short words, and Ichigo shut up. His eyes widened as he felt his power continue to grow. Finally, she took her fingers off his temple, her face as serene and placid as ever.

"Thanks," he said, still slightly shaken. Ukitake raised his eyebrows at Unohana. She held up three fingers, and Ukitake almost went into a coughing fit.

They had thought the young man's strength three days ago had come from his fusion with his sword and hollow. It was becoming apparent that he was an extraordinarily powerful shinigami in his own right. If he had three times the spirit pressure of the average captain, perhaps it wasn't so surprising that he had become their trump card in the war that hadn't happened yet.

Unohana's thoughts went down a different path. She could trust that her future self would not have made the mistake that her vice-captain had. She would never stop a healing kido in the middle merely because the patient's reiatsu was at the level she expected. Which meant that, the last time she had healed him, Kurosaki truly only _(only!)_ had twice a captain's spirit pressure.

His power had increased by fifty percent in three months.

She was suddenly very, very glad that the Seireitei had decided to allow the young man's assumption of friendship.

"Yes, well, if he's recovered from your vice-captain's incompetence, let's get this over with," Mayuri said. He had not seen the brief exchange between the old friends, and was impatient to get back to his laboratory. He pulled a box from his inner robe and uncovered the contents, a small crystal hovering within a glowing sphere. "This is a projection stone. It is one of my greatest discoveries! It is a crystalline form of sekkiseki, grown under high temperature and pressure in a solution that is completely free of spirit particles. Instead of nullifying spirit particles, they will absorb them and expel them in a form we can see. Each crystal takes months to grow, and if they encounter any spirit particles before they are used they will be useless as projectors. Feeble minds such as yours have no conception of the amount of care and effort it takes to produce these stones!"

"So what do I have to do?" Maybe he should start comparing Mayuri to Urahara to his face again, just to annoy him. Bastard.

"Just place your hand on the containment field and insert as much reiatsu as you can. When the stone has absorbed it, it will be attuned to your spirit pressure and only you will be able to use it."

"It looks delicate," Ishida said with a smirk, "and Kurosaki is clumsy. Are you sure your stone can survive him?"

"Hey!"

"Cannonball."

"That was months ago!"

"It was days ago, Kurosaki."

"The crystal is as resilient as any other form of sekkiseki," Mayuri sneered at Ishida, giving the box to Ichigo. "There is no way he can harm it."

Ichigo gathered his power as though he were going to cast a Getsuga Tensho, letting it flow into his hand as though he was holding his sword. He put his hand on the containment field around the stone and released his reiatsu into the field.

The stone exploded.

They all stared at his hands, with the containment field now holding only a cloud of dust and shards of rock, in complete shock. Finally Mayuri sputtered, "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT _COST_?"

"I told you so."

"But you said…"

"I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD THE REIATSU CONTROL OF A DRUNKEN MONKEY!"

"I DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU TOLD ME TO!"

"Sorry, did you think I was worried about him dropping it?"

"YOU INCOMPETENT-" Mayuri looked as though he was about to release his sword and poison both human boys before Unohana intervened.

"Please, Mayuri-taicho, do you have any failed crystals? Ones that he can use to practice on before trying again?"

Mayuri let himself be calmed, though he was still breathing heavily and glaring at Ichigo and Ishida. "Yes. If a leak occurs in the containment field and reishi enters, the crystals can still be used to focus spiritual power. We keep them as replacements for parts on the Kido Cannon. We have plenty, because of _how_ _rare it is_ to get a perfect crystal."

"Well, if there was a chance I could destroy it, why didn't you just _do that in the first place-_" Ichigo snapped back, before Ukitake stepped in.

"Thank you both for your cooperation. Mayuri, why don't I go back to the RDI with you to pick up a few practice crystals for Kurosaki-san so you don't have to come back here?" Ukitake herded the clown-faced captain out of the door, stopping to look back over his shoulder. "Kurosaki-san, will you be here?"

"It's just Ichigo, Ukitake-san. And, yeah, I'll be here." The white-haired man nodded and the two left, leaving only Unohana, the two boys, and the unconscious Orihime in the room.

"Actually, Kurosaki-san, your stomach is not fully healed. You should not be sitting for much longer; you will need to go back to bed soon."

"Zangetsu-no-ossan said Orihime would heal faster if she were around my reiatsu. I'll stay here."

Unohana considered pushing the issue, but saw how guilty he looked when staring at the girl, and decided to compromise. "Perhaps if we moved a second bed in here?"

"Can it be a bunk bed?" Ishida was staying in the fourth division barracks, and was more than a little uncomfortable even with the generally pleasant men and women of the Fourth.

"If you would like, as long as Kurosaki-san is not in the top bunk." She moved to the door to find an unseated officer to make the arrangements, only to be stopped by Ichigo.

"Unohana-san. You woke me up and fixed my reiatsu. Why can't you do that for Inoue?"

Her heart faltered at the pleading expression on the young man's face. "I'm sorry, Kurosaki-san. When there is no physical cause for an extended period of unconsciousness, it is almost always better to allow the patient to recover naturally. If your companions had not insisted that you had to be conscious for you to merge together again, I would not have woken you." She hesitated, hating what she was going to say next.

"And the difficulty with restoring her power is that the connections within her body and her soul are injured. When you split your soul, she was not directing the power. It was forced from her. The pathways her power travels through are… bruised, I suppose you could say. That is something that has to heal on its own. By the time they are healed, her reiatsu will have long since recovered without our help."

Ichigo nodded and bowed his head, letting his hair cover his eyes again. The two boys sat together for a few minutes after Unohana left, both thinking similar thoughts. Finally, Ishida broke the silence.

"She'll be glad you did what you did. Even if she'd lost her powers forever, she would have been glad if it saved your life."

"I know. She's too self-sacrificing. It doesn't mean it should have happened."

Ishida stared at him. "Moron."

"Huh?"

"Never mind." Maybe she got over him? At least Ishida had a chance…

Ichigo blinked at him, confused, and then shrugged it off. "I need to talk to Zangetsu. Let me go grab my sword." He left and went back to his old room, then returned with his zanpakuto. His mask had decided to dematerialize sometime in the night- probably a good thing, really, since carrying a hollow mask around the healing division would have freaked quite a few people out. Ishida watched with interest as he sat in the meditative pose for Jinzen and dropped into his inner world.

Ichigo looked around him, noting with relief that the city was back and it was bright and sunny rather than flooded. He wasn't despairing anymore. He had stopped standing still.

"Ichigo."

He turned around, seeing Zangetsu-no-ossan, complete with sunglasses, on top of a flagpole.

"Hey, ossan. My power is weird- I wanted to see if you knew why. There's more of it. Is it because the hollow's back?"

"I was always here, King," Ichigo raised his head to see his pale doppelganger grinning at him from the skyscraper above him. With a jump and a flip, he was behind Ichigo, forcing him to turn and back up slightly to keep both spirits in sight.

"You just couldn't hear me," he continued. "I was, and always will be, in the depths of your soul. Accept that."

Ichigo tightened his lips. "I have."

"Then why ask stupid questions?"

"So what's up with our power, then?"

"That was another one. It's gotten bigger, idiot."

Ichigo wondered if his sword could still hurt the hollow. Probably not. "How?"

"You spent three months fighting with us in the Precipice World, and then fighting Aizen. What did you expect?"

"That makes no sense. Spirit pressure doesn't grow like that."

"A shinigami's will not, Ichigo. Weren't you listening when I told you why Aizen will attack your body?" his sword asked.

"Um, no. Sorry."

"Do you remember the hollow that was chasing Chad's parakeet, Ichigo? What happened to it?"

"It went to hell. What does that have to do with our power?"

"Why did it go to hell, and not Ulquiorra or any of the other hollows you have killed?"

"It was a serial killer, right? When it was alive?"

"Indeed." The zanpakuto spirit clearly thought he had made his point. Ichigo just stared at him, still confused.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. _Living souls can change_," the hollow snapped. "Nothing a soul does after death will alter its power or eventual destination. A hollow can devour a thousand souls and will still go to Soul Society if it's killed by a zanpakuto. Most plus souls will never become shinigami. Less than one shinigami in a thousand has the potential to become a captain. No amount of training will change that. Once a shinigami reaches the limits of how far their power can take them in Zanjutsu, Kido, Hakudo, and Hoho, they're finished unless they undergo hollowification to add to their power. Or use the Hogyoku, like Aizen. Him beating those limits is what this entire war is about, moron."

"So our power got bigger because… I'm still alive?"

"Took you long enough."

"Human souls have limitless potential, Ichigo. Most will never be able to take advantage of it simply because they do not have enough power to survive the sorts of trials that will make them stronger. Because of your parentage, you had enough of a head start that you were able to live through your initial challenges. Every victory you won, every time you lost and choose to fight again, every time you were beaten down and demanded more of yourself so that you could rise up and continue, your soul responded and your power increased. You will not stop growing unless you stand still. Despair, and this city will drown."

"When will it stop?"

"When you die."

Ichigo thought about that. That was kind of scary, really… he already affected the reiatsu of the humans around him. Who were also changeable, obviously. How much higher could he go?

And, wait- what counted as death? "My soul chain is completely eroded. It's how he was born," he pointed out, gesturing at the hollow.

"But your body did not die. Urahara made sure that you returned to it each night after you recovered from the Encroachment, and that you stayed in it for a week before coming to Soul Society to rescue Rukia. It is your body, not a gigai. Your soul reattached to it and has been regrowing your chain. It is very short right now, but it would be there if you died. Your near-death experience was simply longer and more traumatic than most."

"Huh."

That was kind of comforting, actually. It was nice to know he wasn't technically dead. Not that he hadn't been willing to die to save Rukia, but still.

"OK. What now? I can stay until Ukitake comes, but Unohana's ordered me into bed, so I'm not going to be able to come back soon."

"The pose for Jinzen is merely to get into the correct state of mind, Ichigo. It is not necessary. Come as often as you can so that we can train."

"Oh… your blindfold was gone when I woke up."

"You know how to call it back, Ichigo." He did? He looked at the hollow, the spirit of his mask, who rolled his eyes. Right. He did.

Moving his hand across his eyes in the usual gesture did nothing, though.

"The other hand, Ichigo." Naturally. His sword was always in his right hand. He pulled, and his vision went dark. He lifted the visor off his face, and it dissolved like his mask usually did when he removed it. He saw Zangetsu-no-ossan's bare face for a brief second before the sunglasses were back in their normal place and form.

"Cool."

"Take it back, and focus." Ichigo did, and listened to the slight sound of footsteps in the darkness around him. "Feel the spirit pressure. Find where we are, and find our movements. Our power is more concentrated in our bodies than outside of it. Your must be aware enough to sense the difference."

Ichigo extended his senses. He had been able to find his friends for a long time, but had never tried sensing his own power. Zangetsu-no-ossan was a calm, heavy presence standing off to his left, still close to the flagpole. The hollow's chaotic reiatsu was now behind him and to his right, and Ichigo turned to focus on him, not really trusting the strange détente they seemed to have going. Suddenly, he felt a sharp tingling through his back as a white-ribboned cleaver pierced through his kidneys and out his stomach.

"_Do not take your senses off your enemy!"_

Ichigo shuddered as he placed a hand on Zangetsu-no-ossan's sword sticking out of his body. That was a _weird _feeling. With the other, he pulled his own, identical cleaver off of his back, while his grip on the zanpakuto's blade prevented the older man from simply taking it out of his body. Rather than struggle with him for it, Zangetsu-no ossan moved to a new location to make Ichigo continue to search for him.

"That's pretty hilarious to watch, you know. How long are you going to leave it there, King?" the hollow said. Ichigo couldn't see him, and didn't have anywhere near the level of senses it would take to feel a facial expression through his reiatsu, but he could hear the smirk in the hollow's voice and vowed to wipe it off his face before the training was over.

"Like the old guy said…" and suddenly, in a movement too fast for the older man behind him to react to, Ichigo turned, flash-stepped forward, and pierced the spirit of his sword through the stomach in return, _"…there is no way I can mistake the reiatsu of the sword through my stomach!_"

He jumped away, leaving his original blade in Zangetsu-no-ossan and pulling the other out through his body. He held it raised in a guarding position with his head bowed, feeling the other two men. He could tell where they were, but they were just blobs of more concentrated power in the general swirling of spirit pressure. He couldn't tell what bits of the blobs were hands and which were swords.

"Cute, but you're not gonna be able to do that with Aizen," the hollow grinned, walking around him. Ichigo moved to keep both of them in front of him. He focused harder, trying to find the skin, the barrier where the power shifted from the ordered energy needed for the functioning of the spiritual body to the chaotic spirit pressure that leaked in waves from all three of them. He could feel something strange, something connecting him to them…

"What are these?" He touched what felt like a rope stretching from him to Zangetsu-no-ossan, and felt the bizarre sensation of diving into an electric current that flowed in both directions. He instantly lost his reiatsu sense as his entire consciousness was buffeted by sheer power, some flowing from his sword to him, some flowing from him to his sword. He dropped it with a hiss.

"The spirit ribbons that represent your shinigami and hollow powers. Do not focus on them. They can help you find our location, but they will not help you sense our movements in a fight."

Ichigo shook his head, trying to recover from the shock and return to the fight. He concentrated again, just in time, as the hollow-blob moved forward, and-

'_There!'_

He felt the blob extend a pseudopod that had to be his sword, and barely got his own sword up in time to block. He met the first strike, and could feel the trajectory of the second before he lost his focus and put his sword into position blind to meet the blow. He leapt backwards to try to buy time to get his senses back…

And fell off the side of the skyscraper.

The hollow started laughing as Ichigo dropped several body lengths before managing to solidify the air underneath him. He pulled the visor off and glared at the pale boy, who was leaning over the side and grinning down at him.

"Do it like that. Just like that. Every time." Ichigo extended a single finger at the boy who had herded him off of a building, and jumped back up to stand a few feet away from him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked in frustration. The hollow had been annoying the entire time, but not hostile. The last time they'd fought, they'd been trying to kill each other, and now he was playing _pranks?_

"Can't live with you, can't stab you anymore. I've gotta do _something_ to keep myself entertained."

"That's not…" Ichigo looked for words to explain his exasperation, and finally just turned to Zangetsu-no-ossan. "He's a jerk, but he's helping. Why?"

"He wishes for us to return to our final form. We will not do so until you are ready to leave. Helping you train facilitates that."

"Oh." Ichigo turned his gaze back to the hollow. "I'm going to separate us again, you know."

"D'you think you'll be able to?" his double asked, his grin faded and his voice serious. "The princess couldn't affect us on her own. Us using the Shun Shun Rikka again might kill her. You gonna risk it?"

"I'll stand in front of the Sokyoku itself if I have to." If it needed the power of a million zanpakutos…

"I'll take that chance, _partner_. We won't want to, in the end." Ichigo was worried that he might be right. He remembered the feeling of complete, utter confidence he had had when fighting Aizen, before they had come back in time to a body with a fatal wound. There had been nothing and no one, not even Aizen with the Hogyoku, who had been able to compare with him. It had been fantastic. It might be worth living an existence alone, just to be whole. The hollow continued, "The buildings, you can sense because they've got no reiatsu of their own. It'll get harder when we're on dirt, 'cause of plant roots and worms and stuff."

Ichigo managed to extend his reiatsu senses again, and felt under his feet where the spirit pressure stopped. He felt off to his side, and sensed the edge of the skyscraper. He nodded, and tried to call the visor again, but it didn't come.

"Enough," Zangetsu-no-ossan said. "Ukitake has come back, and the sooner you have given them the information you have decided on, the sooner we are free to leave." Ichigo nodded again, and began to reach his consciousness outwards.

"And, Ichigo- a Getsuga Tensho was not the best method for attempting to infuse the stone with your reiatsu. Use the kido shortcut your cousin taught you."

Ichigo's eyes opened wide in the outer world.

"_Cousin?"_

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Really long authors note **(feel free to skip to the question and teaser at the end)**:

Feel the Force, Ichigo.

You have_ no idea_ how tempted I am to have Urahara make a tiny levitating ball that shoots kido bolts.

This chapter had a lot of exposition and explanations, so I shoved in a tiny fight scene so it wasn't too boring. I hope it worked. The memory projectors are, obviously, a convenient plot device (and hopefully the only thing I will put in that can qualify as such), but I tried to make it so that they could have existed in the canonverse and we just didn't see them. They are a modification of the existing memory technology, and are A) expensive, B) hard to make, C) hard to use, and D) only usable by one person, ever. I have them envisioned as Mayuri's pet project; many longstanding research labs have a project that just won't die because the research advisor thinks it would be _so damn cool_ if you could get it to work on a practical scale, and it keeps getting funded because of that. Mayuri is the only one that thinks the stones are one of his greatest discoveries. However, they will only project true memories, and so they have a very limited utility where a captain-class shinigami _who cannot be trusted to give a completely accurate report_ has critical information. The user of the projector can lie by omission, but cannot falsify the memories he does show.

This chapter presented a possible explanation for the whole Determinator thing Ichigo has going on; in all of the fights where he is beaten up, gets up again, and wins, he isn't getting up because he's got more power, he's got more power because he's getting up. I will be elaborating on the possible effects of his humanity in future chapters, but hopefully never as much at one time as I did in this one; I'm going for less exposition and more action. I'm hand-waving away the whole soul-chain-being-cut thing, which is never addressed in the series. Everyone including the all-knowing enemy treats Ichigo as though he's still human, so I'm doing the same.

I clearly think way too much about the inconsistencies in the Bleachverse, because I have an explanation about Ukitake's illness (i.e., why a dead guy is afflicted by a curable disease) that I am considering putting into this story somewhere in chapter 6 or 7. However, I don't want to make the human kids seem too smart. All three are good students, and Ichigo and Ishida come from medical families, but I don't want to assume that they would have more than common medical knowledge and I'm not sure what that would be for a teenager. So,to determine whether that scene should be written or not, **I am requesting that some of the high school students reading this either answer the following yes/no questions in a review to the chapter, or fill out the poll on my profile.**

Questions:

Did you know without looking at Wikipedia that there is a cure for tuberculosis?

Did you know it is a bacterial infection?

Did you know that antibiotics kill bacteria?

Do you want a scene focusing on Ukitake's illness in this story? (Anyone can answer that one.)

Thank you in advance to anyone who responds.

Happy Thanksgiving to any American readers who made it this far. (I hope the rest of you have a good week too, of course.) I will try to update next Saturday morning, but I will be visiting family over the holiday and cannot guarantee that I will have time to get on the internet. If you don't see the next chapter on Saturday, expect it on Sunday evening when I get home.

**The teaser**:

Ishida stared at the image in front of him, wide-eyed, before it blinked out.

"Kurosaki, _what was that?"_

Ichigo was breathing hard, trying not to be sick. "I- I don't remember what happened there. When I woke up, my sword was in your stomach." He raised the projector. "Will you guys watch it with me?"


	5. Chapter 4 Forging Bonds

Sorry for posting a day later than I said; my laptop died on Friday and my school's computer lab just got the files off the hard drive today. Fortunately, I didn't lose anything important, and the computer may be able to be resuscitated. You get an extra-long chapter as my apology.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the response to this fic; as I write this, it has 62 reviews, 62 favorites, and 67 story alerts. Thank you all! I do reply to signed reviews if the reviewer allows PM's, although I'm slightly behind because of the aforementioned laptop death. There are a few anonymous reviewers who have asked questions that I'm taking the opportunity to reply to here. **Darkness:** the Fade to Black movie was the 'weird forgetting hollows' that Ichigo mentions. I was trying to make the conversation somewhat realistic, so the references were a bit obscure because both of the speakers knew quite well what they were talking about. If you look closely enough, though, all three of the movies were present. As for the rest of your suggestion- those scenes have been written since before I began posting the fic, and I believe you will enjoy them. **Gree:** In the first chapter, the captains were close enough to Ichigo to be able to overhear the dramatic final conversation with Chad, so Zangetsu and the hollow were therefore close enough to overhear Chad's conversation with Ukitake, which is how Zangetsu knew Isshin was a Shiba. I am indeed a TVTropes fan, and probably should have credited them for the references to Determinators, Idiot Balls, and Badass Grandpas in previous author's notes. And you're right; I did mean the Sokyoku- thanks for catching that.

Out of 17 non-random respondents to the questions in the last chapter, 70% knew that TB was curable and that it was a bacterial infection, and 90% knew that antibiotics work because they kill bacteria. With three high school students, I think I have reasonable justification in saying that between them they would have enough information to be useful for my purposes. Just as importantly, the overwhelming majority said they wanted that scene. It'll come up in a few chapters, and the poll on my profile will be put back to the one from Chapter 1 sometime tonight.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

"_And, Ichigo- a Getsuga Tenshou was not the best method for attempting to infuse the stone with your riatsu. Use the kido shortcut your cousin taught you."_

_Ichigo's eyes opened wide in the outer world._

"_Cousin?"_

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ukitake and Ishida jumped and turned to stare where Ichigo was sitting cross-legged on the floor. They had been talking quietly. Somewhat to his dismay, Ishida was finding it impossible to dislike the genial captain, although he still had not worked up the nerve to ask how long he had held his rank.

"What was that, Kurosaki-san?"

"Is Ganju my _cousin?"_ Ichigo asked in shock. Ishida had to stifle laughter, remembering their first meeting in the outskirts of the Rukongai.

"Your father is a Shiba, yes. He was the younger brother of Kaien, Kukaku, and Ganju's grandfather. I believe that would make Shiba Ganju your first cousin, once removed," Ukitake explained. He paused. "Isshin didn't tell you?"

"We have _cousins,_" Ichigo muttered, still stunned. And, he realized, he'd already gotten into a fist-fight with his second-closest male relative… ok, yeah, there was a resemblance to his father there. He took a breath, registering the question. "No… there wasn't really time. I found out he was a shinigami when he showed up in black carrying a sword in the middle of the fight with Aizen."

"Oh," Ukitake blinked. "…would you like to hear about his background, then?"

Ichigo gave it a second's thought, and then shook his head. "I'll wait for my dad. He had his reasons. When he's ready, he'll tell me what they are."

"That's a surprisingly mature attitude," Ishida commented.

Why did people always say that? "Something someone told me once. It helped."

"Ah."

"I have brought several crystals for you to practice with, Kurosaki-san. I will stay to offer any assistance I am able. I am considered one of Soul Societies more proficient kido users."

"Thanks, Ukitake-san. Zangetsu had some suggestions. I think I'll do better this time." Ichigo took one of the small crystals in the box on the floor next to him. The crystals were cloudy and grey, rather than transparent as Mayuri's crystal had been. Ichigo closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing. '_Picture a dark circle…'_

Ukitake and Ishida could feel his reiatsu increase, and Ishida was driven to his knees by the heavy force surrounding him. Kurosaki's reiatsu had changed from the last time he had felt it this close, when they had blown through the protective shield over Seireitei in the Shiba's cannonball. It was darker, heavier, and far, far more powerful.

'_Sink into it…'_

The pressure rapidly decreased, funneling into the grey crystal in his hands. It began to glow, focusing the power and projecting it as light. With a crystal unturned to his reiryoku, his spirit energy, white light would be all it was capable of. With a useable crystal connected to the Research and Development Institute's memory-retrieval devices, the light would take on shapes, colors and sound, and would project a scene of everything that Ichigo's spirit pressure had touched in that memory, giving a three-dimensional projection of the surroundings and including things that Ichigo had not consciously noticed at the time.

The crystal cracked down the middle.

"Shit…" Ichigo muttered.

"I really didn't think you could get any worse at that than when you were at the Shiba's, Kurosaki."

"Shut up. It's been a while."

"It did not explode, at least," Ukitake said diplomatically. "Perhaps a bit slower next time, and with a bit less power."

"Or perhaps," came a sweetly chilling voice from the doorway, "Kurosaki-san should go to bed as he was instructed to do quite some time ago, and use the training grounds for their intended purpose at another time rather than disturb the work of the entire division with his reiatsu."

Identical shudders went down the spines of all three men in the room, and Ichigo backed away to the bunk bed that had been brought into the room while he was in his inner world.

"O…of course. Sorry."

Unohana followed him over to the bed, her smile unwavering. She raised her hand over his stomach, beginning a healing kido. "You appear to have strained your stomach in your exertions in your inner world, Kurosaki-san. I will have to insist that you not return there until at least tomorrow."

Ichigo nodded dumbly. Zangetsu-no-ossan had told him to come back when he could, but Ichigo knew quite well which of the two he was more scared of. As Unohana left the room, he asked,

"How did she know?"

"You had a visor on your face when she stopped by earlier with the men bringing in the bed," Ishida answered. "Where does that come from, anyway? Is that how you're learning to fight blind?"

"Zangetsu-no-ossan's lending me his sunglasses, and yeah. I can barely tell a sword apart from the guy holding it right now, though."

"Perhaps you should take this quiet moment to practice your reiatsu sensing, then," Ukitake said, moving towards the door. "I can come back this afternoon, and we can try again."

"You don't have to, Ukitake-san. It'll probably take awhile, and I bet things are still pretty busy. I can work on it on my own, or find Rukia."

"On the contrary, Kurosaki-san. I am in charge of the investigation of the traitor's plans, and you are our best source of information. Instructing you is unquestionably a better use of my time than the mound of paperwork waiting on my desk. And as for finding Kuchiki-san," he said as he left the room, "I do not believe that will be necessary, as she seems to have found you first."

"Ichigo!" Rukia entered the room, saluting to her captain in passing. Renji, still swathed in bandages, followed in her wake.

"Rukia! Renji!" Ichigo started to get up, only to have Rukia come over and shove him back down.

"Idiot! Stay in bed!"

"Unohana-taicho said we could visit if we made sure you didn't hurt yourself," Renji smirked, taking a seat. "She seems to think you'll be able to find trouble without even leaving the room."

"He won't have to. Trouble's found him. What are you doing here, Abarai?" Ishida snapped, standing up and moving away from the wounded vice-captain.

"Just came to see how the kid was doing, Quincy. Relax."

"Ishida, what…" Oh. The last time Ishida had seen Renji, it had been when he and Byakuya had come to the real world to take Rukia back to Soul Society, and Renji had beaten Ishida up pretty badly. Ichigo had no idea how this meeting had gone the first time around, but Ishida'd probably had a bit more time to get used to the whole 'not an enemy anymore' thing. It wasn't just his own relationships that he was going to have to re-evaluate, obviously. He should probably be grateful Renji had visited at all.

Still, Ichigo had made a promise with them, although it was one they could not remember, and he had kept it. Blades had been shattered, souls had been cut, the ground had been split, but they had returned alive. He would keep them safe.

Dammit, Chad should be here.

"He's OK, Ishida."

Ishida glared at him for a minute, then nodded, pulled his chair to the opposite side of the bed from Renji, and sat down again. "Kurosaki, is there anyone you've fought that you _haven't_ become best friends with?"

"Kenpachi just wants to fight me again, and Byakuya's never seemed to like me much." But he'd thanked him a couple of times, and there _had_ been that gift certificate. For the stoic nobleman, it was a lot. "How's he doing?"

"Do not let Nii-sama hear you address him like that. He is well. You did not hit him that hard."

Ichigo was starting to think he was more tired than he had realized. He was confusing the timelines; Byakuya had been seriously wounded the first time through, but the second time Ichigo had only knocked him out, and there would be no reason for him to be in the Fourth Division at all.

"What about Yoruichi and Soifon? Is her hand OK? I didn't know until I touched her that it would hurt- the only one I'd grabbed was my dad, and he was wearing clothing everywhere."

"Everyone was fine but you. Ichigo, you fought six captains and the captain-commander with your body cut in half! What were you_ thinking_?"

"Hey, they attacked me first! You were there! Blame Aizen! And anyway, only Byakuya was in Bankai." Ichigo paused. "…and Yamamoto." That had sucked.

"_You knocked out Kuchiki-taicho with one hit!" _Ichigo winced.

"You heard about that, huh?" He could see why Renji might be upset about that. Beating Kuchiki Byakuya had always been his goal.

"Everyone has heard about it, Ichigo. Renji heard about it from the healers five minutes after he was conscious. Two captains deserted and the Soutaicho released his Bankai. You could feel it in the farthest districts of the Rukongai. There was no way to cover that up."

"So," Ishida said, coming back to a question Ichigo hadn't fully answered, "why was that you?"

"What?"

"I've been staying in the barracks here, and every other time they speak to me it's a question about you. The rumors say you both came back in time after you had fatally wounded the fifth-division captain. Is that true?" Ichigo nodded. "One of the questions they are asking is why you were fighting him, instead of their captains. Two men are standing against an army, Kurosaki. Why are you so determined to be the one to kill him? Is it just because he's going after Karakura?"

"He's got his own people, actually. He's been building an army for a while, and the arrancars are strong."

"That ain't the point," Renji said. "The Quincy's right. No offense, but you're, what, sixteen? And you're human, and only became a shinigami three months ago no matter how powerful you got. Where was everyone else? Why was a sixteen-year-old human our only hope?"

Ichigo didn't answer right away. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that the shinigami were all decades older than him. Especially when they acted as immature as Renji and Rukia sometimes did. Most of the time, it seemed like they forgot it as well; he hadn't been treated like a baby too often. In the final battle, though, he had to wonder how many people had been remembering the age difference.

"I- I wasn't their only hope." He thought back to the battle above the fake Karakura town, shortly after Unohana had told him why he would be so necessary to the battle.

"Aizen can only hypnotize someone who's seen him release his sword," he explained for Ishida's benefit, "but he made sure that all of the most powerful shinigami had seen it. I haven't. A lot of people hate Aizen, and they all showed up at the last battle. Shinji, Jii-san, Urahara, my dad, Gin… they all pulled something out of their ass that they wanted to kill him with. And most of them told me to stay away. If what they pulled didn't work, I would still be there, able to fight. The only guy with a Bankai who had never seen Aizen's shikai. At one point everyone on the battlefield stood between him and me, just so I wouldn't see his sword. Jii-san told me to get away from the technique he was about to do. Even _Gin_ told me leave and stay alive."

Ichigo looked from the floor to his four friends, letting his gaze linger on the unconscious Orihime. He would make what he had done to her worth it. If she couldn't bring back the dead anymore, he would just make sure no one died.

"I wasn't their only hope. I was their last hope."

"Shit…" Renji muttered, drawing as deep a breath as he could manage with his injuries and letting it out in a sigh. "And now?"

"I'm going after him. My hollow should be able to figure out how to go to Hueco Mundo."

"Um… about that," Rukia began delicately, "why are you part hollow?"

"Training accident." There was no way he was going to tell Rukia that he had done it training to save her. She'd kick his ass and then feel even guiltier. "Don't worry about him."

"Why shouldn't she?" came a new voice from the doorway. They turned to see Yoruichi leaning against the doorway. The dark-skinned woman continued, "Kisuke's been in contact with the Vizards- relax, the shinigami know about them." Ichigo had looked at Rukia and Renji in alarm. "It was unavoidable, unfortunately. But they said that your hollow should have taken over your body long ago, if you didn't kill him first, and it's pretty obvious that you haven't."

"I don't think I can kill him. I trained with Shinji and the others for a month at the wammph-"

"_Stop."_

Ichigo blinked up at Goddess of Flash, who had covered the distance across the room in an instant and placed a hand across his mouth.

"The captains know they exist, and no one's happy about that, but they don't know where they are or what they can do. Your family is with them, and we don't know what resources Aizen has left here. The only way you can be sure your little sisters are safe is if you don't _ever_ say their location out loud." She took her hand away from Ichigo's face only after he nodded.

"All you had to do was ask, you know. I owe them a lot. You don't have to bring my family into it."

"Good. They'd prefer that you don't talk about them at all. The less the captains know about them, the better."

"Hey, what are Vizards, and what is going on?" Renji asked.

After a brief explanation of how Urahara, Yoruichi, Tessai, and the Vizards had come to be exiled in the first place (an explanation that was as new to Ichigo as it was to the others in the room), Ichigo said,

"Ukitake's asked for my memories, though. I'll have to show them the Vizards fighting."

"You don't have to give them everything, Ichigo. Just avoid any memories they appear in."

"No, I mean, they were at the fight with Aizen. I can't not show them that."

"They were?" Yoruichi blinked, and sat down on the bed heavily. "That's… good to hear. We weren't sure. We thought they might stay neutral, or fight Aizen on their own. They don't really have any reason to like the Gotei 13 either."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend, perhaps?" Ishida said.

"We hadn't thought they'd be that pragmatic. I wonder what … changed…" and she trailed off, looking at Ichigo speculatively. He just blinked cluelessly back at her.

"Anyway," she said, changing the subject slightly, "I'll let them know. That'll probably be OK. They'll want that memory too, and the deal is that we get access to any information you give the captains. Just so you know, they'll be making recordings of the stuff you show them. Is there anything else about the Vizards you want to show the captains?"

"I use my own mask a lot, but nothing besides that."

"Good. So, back to the question, how can you use your mask if you still have a hollow?"

"I beat him, but I didn't kill him. I'm not sure he's the same as the hollows the others had. It kind of sounds like their hollows were just stuck into them by Aizen. Mine was born from my soul when I turned partly into a hollow. When he disappeared, he told me he'd be back. He's a part of me, and I just had to get used to it. He won't cause problems unless I split our soul again."

"Are you sure about that?" Rukia wasn't sure that she could stand seeing a monster looking out at her from _that_ face. Not again.

"Yeah. I have his heart."

That killed the conversation for a bit, as his friends processed that. Yoruichi moved onto the reason she came.

"So, you're planning on going after Aizen alone. Soifon and I want you to be training with us until you leave, unless you've been through the Onmitsukido training regime already. Have you?"

"No, but the sooner I can go, the better. Thanks, but I don't think I've got the time."

"I think you're going to have to make the time. Are you just planning to walk into his palace and challenge him to a one-on-one duel?"

"I'm _not_ that stupid. He won't be able to feel me, and I've been to Las Noches before. Once I get close enough, he won't have a chance without his sword, and I won't be able to see him release it."

"Reiatsu sensing isn't the only way to find a person, Ichigo. Gin says Aizen has a monitoring system in place, and that the corridors can move. You need stealth training, or you'll never reach him. If an alarm sounds, you'll have to go through his army, and he'll have time to get away."

"He doesn't have anyone able to stop me." He'd never fought the first, second, or third Espada, but his final form would be able take Yammy out easily. Ulquiorra in his second release form had been worse, but if his mindless, fully hollowified form had been able to kill him, he wouldn't have any difficulties if he was combined. And sane.

"Neither did we, but we were able to delay you. Do you want to give him time to run again?"

Ichigo weighed the benefits against the time it would take, and finally nodded. "I'm going before school starts. He might go after Tatsuki and my other friends if I wait any longer. I can train with you, but I'm not going to wait if you don't think I'm ready."

She looked at him, gauging his resolve, and gave a short nod back.

"We can work with that. And, there's one more thing you need to think about."

"What?"

"Do you really think you can be an assassin?" Her voice was low and serious, and her golden eyes met his amber intently as he gazed back without flinching. "All shinigami, but especially the Onmitsukido, learn a lesson at the Academy. 'Seek not beauty in battle. Seek not beauty in death. Consider not your own life. If you wish to protect that which must be protected, then strike while your opponent's back is turned.' Can you do that? Can you strike from the shadows, unseen, without challenging Aizen to a fair fight?"

"I can't hit him from behind," Ichigo began.

"If your resolve isn't strong enough to forget about your honor, Ichigo, then this mission is _useless_!" Yoruichi snapped.

"_I've tried!_ He guards his blind spots! The closest I've come to killing him was in a one-on-one fight, when he was able to see me coming! _And then we came back in time!"_ He stopped short, breathing as heavily as his stomach would allow. Fuck. He'd thought he was past getting upset about that, but he'd been so _close_. Maybe he should have used Mugetsu…

He hadn't. Regrets were pointless. Don't look back.

"But you have attacked him from behind?" Yoruichi asked, relaxing slightly.

"Yeah. My job when everyone else was fighting him was basically to wait for an opening. I was the only one they could be sure would see it."

"Good. All I need is to know you will try. In the Onmitsukido, you take every chance you can get." She began to walk towards the door. "We start when Unohana gives you medical clearance. Be ready. It won't be like anything you've done before."

"Hey, Yoruichi, can Geta-boshi pass on a message?"

She paused in the doorway. "Yes, he can. Do you want to say something to your family?"

"Nah. They already know everything I'd say. Tell the Vizards," and Ichigo paused and smirked, "tell them 'seventy minutes even. I broke Hiyori's record'."

"Huh?"

"They'll understand it." She nodded and left, leaving the humans and shinigami in a thoughtful silence that was broken when Rukia spoke.

"You cannot do this alone."

Ichigo had been waiting for that. He'd have been a bit hurt if it hadn't come up, actually, but he needed to cut that thought off right away. "You're powerless, remember? You're not going to be able to fight for weeks."

"Your school doesn't _start_ for weeks. I will be stronger then."

"Not strong enough. Aizen's army is made up of arrancars- hollows that have broken their masks," he elaborated, glancing at Ishida, "and all of them were at least Gillians. You won't be able to take any on without your full power."

"If I go home, though," Ishida said, "I'll be able to figure out what I did in your past. My grandfather must have left some books with my father; I know he received some things in the will. The cure must be in one of those. If I get to my father's library, I'll be able to go with you."

"Aizen named you as a target, Ishida. I'd go early if he had you as a hostage."

"I can take care of myself!"

"I took you out at twenty percent power," Renji snorted, "and Aizen beat me easily. Do the math, Quincy." He stood up and walked over to Ichigo's side, smirking down at him with his zanpakuto across his shoulder. "I've got a bit of a grudge against the bastard, though, and there's nothing wrong with my power like with these two. You're gonna suck at stealth, kid. If you'll be fighting through his army, I'll be with you, and I've got a few friends I think will want to tag along."

Ichigo looked at him, startled. "You barely know me."

"Yeah. But how well do _you_ know _me_?"

Ichigo bowed his head in unspoken relief. Well enough that he should have seen this coming. Ichigo would have done the same thing if their positions were reversed. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as he had first thought.

He raised a fist and casually punched Renji on the bandages as hard as he could from the awkward angle.

"You… little…" the red-haired man gasped, bending over in pain.

"Thanks, but no thanks." Ichigo saw the return punch coming a mile away and leaned back, smirking.

"You think you'd be able to keep up, Renji? You're not looking too good there."

"Good enough to kick your ass, Strawberry!"

"Anytime, anywhere, Pineapple!"

"Stop it! Both of you!" and Rukia hit them both, leaving them clutching their heads. Ichigo sighed, rubbing his forehead. That had been… familiar. He'd needed that. They didn't know him, at least not as well as they had, but they were the same people. He could rebuild.

"Seriously, if you came you'd just be attacking me. That's _why_ I was the last hope, dumbass. You've seen Aizen release his sword already. So have all your friends."

"You don't even know who I was going to ask!"

"Ikkaku, Yumichika, Matsumoto, Hisagi, Kira, and Iba."

"… that's gonna be creepy for a while, isn't it?"

Ichigo shrugged. "If you want to help, train with me when you're recovered. I'm working with Zangetsu-no-ossan and the hollow now, but their swords can't hurt me. When I get good enough I'll have to move up."

Renji frowned at him. "Don't try to distract me, kid. If you're able to go against Yamamoto-soutaicho, there's not much I can help you with."

"Oh…" Ichigo pulled his right hand across his eyes, showing them his visor. "I'm working on my reiatsu sensing. If I can't see his sword's release, he can't affect me. Ukitake suggested I practice now, actually, since I've got nothing else to do."

"Then we will help you," Rukia said in an uncompromising tone. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"…actually, let's go with 'am I holding up an arm or not'."

They spent the next hour quietly talking, with Ichigo pointing at whoever was holding up their arm at the time. He was growing able to hold the sixth sense longer, up to several minutes at a time even during conversation, and the blobs of his friends had decreased in size, becoming vaguely human-shaped. Much of the questioning had focused on the general events of the war in Ichigo's past, but Ichigo had held off on any detailed storytelling until he was able to use the memory projector. Rukia and Renji finally left after Ichigo started getting a headache and Hanataro had arrived to very politely remind Renji that he was due for another healing session, and Ichigo fell asleep shortly before his own session with Isane.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

In the late afternoon, he was standing with Ukitake on the training grounds of the Fourth Division, holding a glowing crystal in his hand. Except for Ishida watching from the side, the area was unoccupied, although there had been several people practicing their kido who had quickly departed when the two captain-class fighters arrived. Ichigo doubted it had been because of Ukitake's presence; the white-haired captain's poor health meant that the healers of the Fourth knew him almost as well as his subordinates in the Thirteenth Division. Ichigo really had to wonder what the rumors were saying about him.

"Good, Kurosaki-san! Hold the flow steady, and keep it slow. Try to build up the light gradually." The floor between them was littered with the remains of several previous attempts. Ichigo had been working with this one for almost half an hour, and Ukitake was beginning to believe that bringing a real crystal to the session had not been overly optimistic.

The light quickly increased until it was almost blinding, and then decreased until it was dark and grey again as Ichigo cut off the power flowing through the crystal. He sighed and tried again, and this time managed to build it up in increments, stepwise, although he was not able to control the flow of power enough to make it a smooth increase.

"Better. Can you try to decrease the power?"

Ichigo did his best, but it felt like he was trying to dam a river with his bare hands. He could cut it off at the source, but he couldn't decrease the flow after he had released it. He said as much, and Ishida remarked,

"It sounds like the same problem as you had with the cannonball. The power was there, and you were directing it where it was supposed to go, but you couldn't put out less of it when we told you to."

"That is simply a matter of control, Kurosaki-san," Ukitake explained. "Most shinigami do not have as much reiryoku as you do, and they have typically been training in kido for several years before they can access their full power. You lack the… delicacy, the fine touch that is required to manipulate your spiritual pressure. It as though you are a sumo wrestler who is attempting to reproduce a piece of fine calligraphy by finger-painting."

"So what can I do?"

"Just practice, I'm afraid, or give up entirely. Kenpachi-taicho of the Eleventh has a similar problem to yours, and chose not to put in the effort to improve; although the Eleventh Division has traditionally focused on Zanjutsu, it did not quite so overwhelmingly shut out the demon arts before he took command and spectacularly failed the single Academy kido class that Yamamoto-soutaicho insisted he take." Ukitake thought for a moment, then continued.

"When the current crisis is past, you might consider asking your father for lessons. Although not a master, he was competent at kido, and rather skilled at cloaking spells. Unfortunately, at your current level of power, you will likely need to practice for several years before you are able to use even the lower-level kido spells in combat."

If Zangetsu-no-ossan and his hollow were right, though, he wouldn't be staying at his current level of power, and somehow, he didn't think his chances of getting anything useful out of Goat-face were too good. The only time his father had given him any helpful instruction was when their town had been about to be destroyed. "If I need to reduce my power output…" Ichigo scratched his head consideringly. It was worth a try. "…Bankai."

"_What?"_

A black flare of power exploded from the orange-haired teen, then cleared to show Ichigo in a black overcoat with a black daito in his hand, even though his sword had been left in their room. "Tensa Zangetsu."

The normally calm captain stared at Ichigo incredulously. "Forgive me, Kurosaki-san, but is _that_ your Bankai?"

"Yeah. So?"

"It's rather… unusual. Why did you release it?" Kuchiki Byakuya had reported the shape it had taken, and he had seen the manifested spirit of Tensa Zangetsu on Sokyoku Hill, but actually seeing the young man in Bankai was another matter entirely.

"It's small, you mean."

"Well… yes."

"Why is it unusual?" Ishida asked.

"Most Bankai's are big reiatsu projections," Ichigo explained. He knew quite well why Ukitake had that expression on his face. Byakuya had once had a very similar one. "You've seen Mayuri's, right? They'll either make something like that, or change the environment to give the captain some sort of advantage. Mine just changes my coat and compresses my reiatsu into my body and sword."

"According to Kuchiki-taicho, the compression increases your speed greatly. Is that true?"

"Speed, strength, and endurance, and my Getsuga Tensho's are a lot more powerful. I become a better fighter in general. I'm not projecting as much reiatsu, though, so I thought it might help with this." He raised his left hand, still holding the crystal, and focused his power.

"Kurosaki-san, I don't think…"

The stone exploded even more violently than Mayuri's original one and, unlike the first stone, it was completely uncontained. Ukitake raised a hand to protect his eyes, while the shrapnel that flew in the other direction impacted harmlessly against Ichigo's Bankai coat. He shook his hand, now bleeding slightly from several cuts where the shards had projected downwards instead of outwards.

"That was even worse than the first time, Kurosaki."

"Yeah…" Ichigo muttered, picking a piece of sekkiseki out of his palm. "I guess not."

"As I was saying, Kurosaki-san, in the Ban release a shinigami's reiatsu increases by an order of magnitude. Even if it is more compressed, the simple fact that your power is so much greater means that it would be even more difficult to control the flow. I'm afraid there aren't any shortcuts to reiatsu control. You'll just have to practice."

Ichigo nodded resignedly, then stiffened, hearing an insistent inner voice.

"I need to talk to my sword. Can we take a break for a few minutes?"

Ukitake stared at him. "You wish to enter your inner world? Now?"

"Yeah, it's the first time I've been in Bankai since I split my soul. Tensa Zangetsu sounds annoyed."

"…Kurosaki-san, how long can you stay in Bankai?"

"Huh?" Ichigo looked up at him from where he had settled on the ground in preparation for Jinzen. "I've never tried holding it until I can't. Why?"

"Please, what is the longest you have stayed in the final release?"

"Three months or so." Ichigo's eyes were closed as he dropped into his inner world, and so he did not see the expression of complete shock on Ukitake's face. Ishida did, however, and filed the reaction away for future contemplation.

Ukitake tried to wrap his mind around the dual ideas of both having the capability of holding a shinigami's most powerful technique for that long, and the necessity of it. He simply couldn't imagine a situation that would require three months in Bankai, and filed the latter thought away until his young pupil was conscious again. The former, however…

The boy's Bankai was, at first glance, rather pathetic compared to the massive constructions that most of the captains could boast. However, he had demonstrated its effectiveness in his fight three days ago against the captain of the Sixth Division, and more careful consideration gave his sword's true power. His fighting ability increased by the same order of magnitude that his reiatsu did, and because his reiatsu was compressed rather than projected, he did not have the time limitations imposed upon the other captains by the amount of reiatsu expended. It was a final release that would be fully capable of standing against the best that Soul Society had to offer.

It was interesting, though, that such a brash young man should have such a subtle Bankai. A zanpakuto generally mirrored its wielder. Kurosaki Ichigo likely had depths he had not yet shown to any shinigami save possibly Kuchiki Rukia.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Before he even opened his eyes, Ichigo sensed the reiatsu of Tensa Zangetsu off to his left, standing in midair. His reiatsu was similar to Zangetsu-no-ossan's, but bigger and wilder, without the calm feeling he had come to associate with the older man. The hollow was nearby, behind Ichigo, but Ichigo chose to trust him at his back this time. He had different priorities now.

Ichigo jumped to stand on the air facing the young brunette. "You wanted to talk?"

"_Don't_ do that again."

"What?"

"We woke up, and you were dying at our feet! _Take better care of yourself_!" Tensa Zangetsu wasn't nearly as angry as the first time they had met, but Ichigo recognized the anguish behind the eyes. He had seen it in the mismatched eyes of Tensa Zangetsu's combined final form, when the young man in front of him and the hollow now standing on air behind him had been one being.

'_What I wanted to protect… was you, Ichigo.'_

"You were there too! You _know_ I didn't want to come back. There was no way we could have predicted this!"

"YOU SHOULD HAVE USED IT! YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN SAFE!" Ichigo stepped back, eyes wide. That was the absolute last thing he'd expected the young man to say, given how hard he had tried to prevent Ichigo from learning the Final Getsuga Tensho in the first place.

"Hey," the hollow said, speaking for the first time, "us using Mugetsu would have sucked. Our power wouldn't have been able to protect us if it didn't exist anymore."

"You know why I didn't!" Ichigo protested, eyes still wide.

"Next time, don't think about us, Ichigo. It was pointless, because we were there too. We're a part of you. Even if you can't hear us anymore, we will always be there, in the depths of your soul," Tensa Zangetsu said, echoing the hollow's words from earlier in the same day. "Accept that."

After a short pause, Ichigo smiled slightly, and bowed his head.

"I have."

"Then why do stupid things?" The brunette had visibly calmed down, and came closer to Ichigo as their eyes met again. His lips twitched up, and for the first time Ichigo could see the resemblance to his older self, who had had the same slight expression on his face yesterday.

"That being said, it's the thought that counts, and even though you nearly died this may turn out to be the better course of action. Thank you."

Ichigo just shrugged. "We're OK, then?"

The brunette's slight smile widened to a cheerful grin, and something about the expression made Ichigo realize that Tensa Zangetsu was the youngest of all of him. He only existed when Ichigo was in Bankai, and except for the extended period of time in Hueco Mundo, the fake Karakura Town, and the Precipice World, that probably hadn't been more than a couple of days even when all of his fights and training were combined.

"We're OK."

"Touching. Very touching," the hollow said dryly, walking forward. "I don't suppose you'll come to your senses and tell the idiot that trying to split our soul again is a stupid idea?"

"My older self is correct, hollow. We cannot truly live if we are on a level of our own. There could be no growth, because no one would be able to come against us."

"Having the power to kick everyone's ass is _not_ a bad thing, moron."

"Our power increases when we rise to meet a challenge. If we stay combined, we will stagnate."

"Wait," Ichigo said, "why do you want more power? We've got plenty. I'm having trouble using what I've got."

"You'll have a lifetime to learn control, and we will make sure you practice. It will be… a challenge. They do not all have to be physical. And, did you never think it strange that you, a human, had shinigami powers?"

"Didn't Aizen say it was the Hogyoku?" He'd been fighting Gin at the time, and hadn't caught much of the conversation between Aizen and his father, but he'd heard something about Orihime and Chad's powers. Of course, Aizen had been saying a lot of things in those fights. There was no telling how many of them were true.

"That might have had something to do with it, but Zangetsu was born from your desire for the power to protect, Ichigo. Of course I want more power. And in the few months since Zangetsu was born, we have grown from having merely a captain's level of reiatsu to several times that. If we continue at even a fraction of our growth rate, then after a lifetime Zangetsu will _dwarf_ Ryujin Jakka."

"Look, there's a point at which more becomes silly," the hollow snapped. "Between us, we've got enough to destroy mountains."

"And Ryujin Jakka can reduce all of creation to ashes. When we shuffle off our mortal coil, I want you to be able to swing me and cleave the heavens asunder. _Without_ combining."

It was disconcerting for Ichigo to find himself on the same side of the argument as the hollow, but he was a bit disturbed by the zanpakuto spirit's ambitions. "Where did this come from?"

"What lay behind the Soutaicho's blade?"

Ichigo thought back. "Rage. Grief. And fire. Lots and lots of fire."

"The power of his sword is the meterstick for all of the zanpakuto in Soul Society. We all measure ourselves against it. We felt that power, and we can surpass it."

"…does the old man want this too?"

"He is as aware of our potential as I am, and does not wish to see it cut short."

"That's not really the same thing."

"Yes, it is. All of me wishes to protect you, and wants for you to live a long and full life and die in your sleep as an old man."

"Bo-ring," the hollow sing-songed.

Ichigo sighed. "If I can make you exist again after we combine, I will. I'm not going to be challenging Jii-san to any swordfights, though."

"And if you keep the skies of this world clear, and keep moving forward, and allow me to protect you, I will give you the power to protect what you want to protect." Their eyes were locked onto each other, gauging the others resolve. Finally, Ichigo nodded.

"Thanks." He would prefer that his sword want to protect them on his own, but he would take what he could get. At least they'd spoken without fighting, and come to some sort of understanding.

"You might wanna take advantage of that protection right now, partner," the hollow said suddenly, looking up at the sky with a wider grin than usual. "Unohana just got to the training ground. You _do_ remember you're not supposed to be here, right?"

Ichigo blinked. He hadn't. "Shit."

"She probably won't be too happy you are in Bankai, either," Tensa Zangetsu chimed in cheerfully. "This is not an enemy I can protect you from."

Ichigo looked at the avatars of his power with a flat expression on his face. "Thanks." The gratitude this time was somewhat less sincere.

"Since you will likely not be able to come back in the near future, this might be a good time to practice external manifestation," the zanpakuto suggested. "My older self will need some measure of independence, if he is to go searching for Muramasa."

"Get the pineapple to teach you. It'll let him feel useful," the hollow smirked. Ichigo rolled his eyes as he sent his consciousness out of his mind.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

He didn't open his eyes, just sent his senses out. Unohana was waiting directly in front of him, and Ukitake and Ishida were off to the side, the cowards. He was speaking before he made any other motion to get out of the pose for Jinzen.

"We were talking, not fighting. Tensa Zangetsu just wanted to tell me some things."

"You are in Bankai, Kurosaki-san. That is _not _restful. I must insist that you return to bed immediately." Her voice was calm, and her smile did not waver. Ichigo nodded, eyes wide, and was preparing to depart with all the speed his full release was capable of when Ukitake coughed lightly.

"Unohana-taicho, his control has become good enough to attune a projection crystal to his reiatsu. May we continue for just a few more minutes?" Ichigo's respect for the ill captain's courage rose several notches as Unohana turned her pleasant smile in his direction. _'Scary…'_

"Of course, Ukitake-taicho. I would be pleased to facilitate the progress of your investigation in any way I can."

Ukitake nodded, sweat visible on his brow, and produced a box similar to the one Mayuri had been carrying that morning. He opened it to reveal a containment field with a stone hovering inside, one of a slightly different size and shape from the one Ichigo had destroyed but otherwise the same. Ichigo shunpoed to his side, grateful to get away from the captain of the Fourth, and reached for the sphere, only to have Ukitake withdraw it.

"In Shikai, if you please, Kurosaki-san."

Ichigo flushed and dropped out of Bankai. Zangetsu, which had previously been in his room, stayed in his hand until he placed it on his back and let it re-wrap itself. He took the stone from Ukitake and let his power flow into the field like he had been practicing, without trying to increase or decrease the amount. This time, the stone absorbed his reiatsu without incident. As Ichigo gave it his energy, he could feel the stone react to the first spirit particles it had come into contact with, and change structure slightly to become better able to absorb and react to the signature of that reiatsu. Finally, he felt the stone stop changing, and cease absorbing, and instead begin to put the excess energy he was sending it into the environment. He opened his eyes to see the stone projecting a chaotic mixture of black, deep red, and pale blue, colors that were mirrored in the swirling energies within the stone itself.

"Good, Kurosaki-san. Once the light begins to appear, the stone is fully attuned to your reiatsu. Please stop putting your power into the stone."

Ichigo cut off the flow, and the colors disappeared. Inside the stone, the lazy curls of black and red also disappeared, leaving behind a transparent stone of light crystalline blue, a color Ichigo recognized as the color of his battle aura in his moments of greatest resolve.

"Well done, and thank you," Ukitake said, taking the stone from him and turning off the now-useless containment field. "If I take this to the Research and Development Institute, they can complete it tonight, and I can instruct you in its use when they deliver it tomorrow morning. Shall I come to your room after breakfast?"

"Sure. Thanks." Ichigo turned to where Unohana was waiting serenely to chivvy him back to his room. A final thought occurred to Ukitake, and he called out once more.

"Kurosaki-san. There is a piece of advice that I have given to quite a few young vice-captains and captains over the centuries, including your father. True fighting skill is not simply attaining the final release. It is attaining the release, and then not having to use it. You should not rely on your Bankai to fight. Even if you had improved your control by releasing your sword, I would have suggested that you take kido lessons unreleased anyway."

Ichigo looked back at him. "Thanks, but I've tried not using the Bankai, and I've gotten my ass kicked until I pulled it out. I've been in Bankai for most of my recent fights. I guess I'm not that good yet."

"I still suggest you practice more restraint. To release your sword while injured simply to test a theory of reiatsu control implies a casualness with the use of your Bankai that is not advisable. It is wise to keep power in reserve, hidden in case it is needed. In a clash between two fighters with a Bankai, the loser is more often than not the one who released their sword first."

"I know. Don't worry, I wouldn't use my mask that easily," Ichigo said, turning to leave.

Ukitake had forgotten, in the shock of seeing one of the oddest Bankai's in his long career, that the young man was a Vizard. "And how long can you hold your mask for, Kurosaki-san?"

Ichigo paused at the entrance to the training grounds as Ishida came to join him. "I don't know. It was a few seconds at first, but I got better. Most of the time now it gets broken before it dissolves." He finally conceded to Unohana's subtle herding and entered the building leading to his room, leaving Ukitake to mull over a rather unsettling picture of the development of the young man with the startlingly familiar face.

Shinigami spent years, decades, or even centuries developing their fighting skill and reiatsu control, and it was time that the child had not had. But a skilled, controlled fighter could still be defeated by an opponent who was less technically skilled, but was faster and stronger. Ichigo had clearly focused his efforts on developing his speed and power to the extreme, as evidenced by his combined final form. Ukitake had never seen the young warrior fight when not under an illusion, but he would be willing to bet that his style would be functional and efficient, without the grace attained from years of kendo. Ukitake, with dawning comprehension, began to realize why the boy's deceptively unimpressive final release was the one that had been the best suited to his soul.

Ichigo's bankai was not the most powerful. That title unquestionably belonged to the captain-commander. It was not even the fastest; despite the recent revelations about the abilities of his sword, that honor still belonged to Ichimaru Gin. What it was, however, was the _easiest to use_. Ichigo had attained it and fought a captain with decades of experience an hour later, and had been able to do so because it needed no special abilities or skills beyond the fighting techniques he was already familiar with. He had continued to use it frequently because he was able to enter into it with just a release phrase and without a significant sacrifice of reiatsu, as simply as most shinigami entered the first release, and then had continued to improve the other aspects of his power.

Ukitake looked at Kurosaki Ichigo, and saw a young man with little formal training, an absurd amount of power, and only the crudest ability to use it for anything but swinging his sword; but who was permanently in Shikai release, who compensated for the lack of decades of practice by using his Bankai as though it were his Shikai, who used his mask as though it were his Bankai, and who had still further means to increase his fighting ability.

If Ukitake had not been such a good judge of character, he thought that he would be profoundly disturbed by the boy who had just left the training grounds. However, he trusted his own impressions, and it was hard not to like someone who had stood in front of a stream of lava to protect you and your best friend.

As he left the training grounds, he realized that he had forgotten to ask Kurosaki a question.

'_Why on earth was he in Bankai for three months?'_

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo had been herded back into his room and into bed with strict instructions not to leave for anything less than a fire burning down the building. The only bright side was that seeing him gently bullied by Unohana seemed to have cleared up some of the fourth division's general reticence around him; Isane-fukutaicho was considerably chattier during his final healing session of the day and apologized for her mistake with his reiatsu levels in the morning, and Hanataro was almost cheerful when he stopped by after his shift. At Ichigo's request, he dropped a message off with Renji before heading to dinner.

"Hey. The seventh seat said you wanted to see me." Renji entered into the room, taking a seat next to Ichigo's bed. Ishida lay on the top bunk reading a copy of the Seireitei Communication, ostensibly ignoring them both and actually listening quite closely.

"Yeah. I need to learn how to manifest my zanpakuto."

"Why? You've already gotten to Bankai."

"Not the normal way, and I'm playing catch-up. I can't go into my inner world, so I want to bring him out here."

Renji snorted. "It takes a while to learn, Strawberry, and a lot of reiatsu. Jinzen is easier. Don't worry," he smirked, "I'm sure the big, bad healer will let you in there soon. Just wait to talk to him."

"Look, would you just tell me how?"

The red-haired man shrugged. "It's not a hard concept, actually. It's the opposite of Jinzen. Instead of finding your power and pushing yourself down and towards it by squeezing your heart into your blade, you find your power and pull it up and towards you. Pull your blade out of your heart."

"What's so difficult about it, then?"

"It's easy to say, hard to do. A zanpakuto's place is in your soul. Removing them from it, even temporarily, takes a lot of reiatsu. The manifested form they take is also made from your power. And, of course, you're pulling them from their home and they don't want to go, so you're fighting them to bring them out. And then you've got to have the power and the experience to hold them there long enough to subdue them. If you don't have any _fancy shortcuts_," and that was said with a mocking look at Ichigo, "you've got to train for a decade to get them out long enough to do that. Not even Unohana-taicho can ground you for that long."

"Pull your blade out of your heart, huh?" Ichigo closed his eyes and found his power, synchronizing his mind with it as he had learned to do from his father three months ago in the Precipice World. Instead of entering a meditative state and sinking into his mind, though, he reached down and found his power reaching up in return, meeting him halfway. He _pulled_, and opened his eyes, looking up at Zangetsu-no-ossan's stern face.

"Well, well. Looky here." Ichigo glanced down at his feet to see that his hollow had also manifested. He supposed that made sense; he hadn't been differentiating between the different parts of his power when he had pulled it up.

Renji was gaping at the older man by Ichigo's side, whom he had seen once before when Ichigo was training for Bankai in Urahara's old hideout. "What… how…" On the top bunk, Ishida gave up on the pretense of ignoring the activity in favor of laughing at the look on his face.

"We have more than enough power, Abarai Renji, and we desired to come out. He attained Bankai months ago, and has no need to 'subdue us'. None of the difficulties you encountered with Zabimaru apply in our case."

"_That's not fair!"_

"Life's not fair, monkey-boy," the hollow grinned. He looked back at Ichigo. "Or maybe it is. A body of my own, in the outer world. It's about time."

"Made from my power, and I can end the manifestation if you cause problems." Ichigo reminded him. "I'm glad."

The pale boy narrowed his eyes at Ichigo suspiciously. "Why?"

"I didn't really want to give you my body," Ichigo replied, leaning back and closing his eyes. "Have fun with the Garganta."

"_What?_ That's not…" and he stopped abruptly, while Renji started laughing.

"Hold the manifestation as long as you can, Ichigo," Zangetsu-no-ossan instructed. "We have to test the limits of our range. Ishida, do you have a watch?"

"Yes, why?"

"Time us." The black-haired man placed a hand on the hollow's shoulder, and with a combined buzz of shunpo and sonido, they were gone, leaving the three conscious occupants of the room staring after them.

"…Kurosaki, was that a good idea?"

"Um. Ossan can keep him out of trouble. I think."

"Who's going to keep Zangetsu out of trouble, though? Zanpakuto spirits can't just wander around by themselves!" Renji exclaimed.

Ichigo could think of a rather prominent example, but it was one he had already decided not to tell anyone about. "If they run into anything, they can just come back."

The three continued the 'who's arm is raised' game for a while before Ichigo suddenly felt the vacated spaces in his soul fill. "Time," he said to Ishida.

"About twenty minutes."

Ichigo felt his power rise, and reached down to meet them, manifesting the two spirits once more.

"How do you feel?"

Ichigo gauged his reiatsu levels. "Not bad. Like I've thrown a few Getsuga's, but nothing major."

"Good. We did not seem limited by distance from you, either, but you will have to practice keeping the manifestation for extended periods of time."

"Look, what's this about?" Renji asked. "You obviously don't need to talk to them if they're leaving right after you start the manifestation. I've played along, but if you're letting hollows loose into Seireitei I think I'm gonna need an explanation."

"I'm not feeling the love, monkey-boy."

"He is having difficulty controlling the flow of his reiatsu, and his lack of control will cause problems when he attempts to learn kido in the future," Zangetsu-no-ossan said, completely poker-faced. "Manifesting us while he is practicing will cut him off from two-thirds of his power, and will tie up a portion of the remainder in our manifested bodies. Having less available will allow him to improve his control faster."

Ichigo came to the disturbing conclusion that his sword was a much better liar than he was.

"Oh," Renji said. He looked at Ichigo. "Why didn't you just say that?"

"Um…"

"He doesn't want to admit that he sucks at kido even more than you do," the hollow smirked.

"Can you shut up?" Ichigo snapped, glaring at the hollow. The hollow disappeared, and Ichigo stared at the empty space. "I didn't mean to do that."

"A subconscious desire, maybe?" Ishida suggested. Ichigo shrugged, though the other boy couldn't see him from the top bunk.

"It sounds like you'll need all the help you can get, then, if you're that bad," Renji said, standing and heading for the door. "Glad to lend a hand."

"Thanks. See you later." The redhead nodded and left.

"Go to bed, Ichigo," his sword said. "We can continue this tomorrow." Ichigo nodded, yawning. It had been a long day despite the nap in the middle, and he still wasn't fully recovered.

"It's too early for me, Kurosaki," Ishida said, jumping down and taking the torch with him. "I'll be in the division library if you need me."

Ichigo looked at his sword in the growing darkness as Ishida left the room. "Was that true?"

"No. Manifesting us while attempting kido would mean that you would be juggling three tasks rather than just one, and you would likely be unable to hold either the manifestation or the spell. You will just have to practice."

Ichigo rolled his eyes, let the manifestation end with a muttered 'good-night', and quickly fell asleep.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

The next morning, Ichigo had just sat up and was rubbing his eyes when he heard a familiar voice from the other side of the room.

"Kurosaki-kun?"

"Inoue!" Ichigo jerked his head around and stared at the brown-haired girl, who was sitting up and looking at him, tears beginning to form her eyes.

"I thought it was you… your hair was so long, I thought I might be seeing things... I'm glad you're alive…"

"Geez, what a face you're making, Inoue! I know my hair's a mess, though," he said, running his hand through his ragged mane. He really should get it cut. He thumped on the bottom of the bed above him. "Hey, Ishida! Inoue's awake!"

"Mrmph… what?"

Ichigo got out of bed and reached up, hauling Ishida off the top bunk despite his half-conscious protests and dumping him on the floor next to him.

"Kurosaki, what do you want?" Ishida muttered, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Ishida-kun too?"

Ishida jerked up, suddenly fully aware. "Inoue-san! You're awake!"

"Fill her in; I'm going to find Unohana." Ichigo shunpo'd out of the room and found Unohana just leaving her quarters after breakfast, ready for her morning rounds. She followed him back to the teenagers' room, and began an examination of Orihime's physical status and reiatsu channels while she gave the girl a detailed explanation of her incapacity. Finally, she allowed the green glow around her hand to fade and stepped away from the bed.

"You are in good health, except for the pathways of your power. They will likely take several months to heal. Please do not attempt to use your abilities until a healer or kido master has checked your channels and confirmed that they are useable again. You will recover faster in an environment with a high amount of spirit particles; when you have left Soul Society it would be advisable to spend time in Kurosaki-san's company, as he will be the largest source of spirit particles available and your reiatsu is apparently used to responding to his already."

"She will; we go to school together," Ichigo told her. Unohana nodded and left the three humans alone.

"Inoue, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I don't even remember it."

"Kurosaki-kun…" Orihime looked at his bowed head. "I can still feel them." She closed her eyes and sat up, listening to the silence in her soul. "They're sleeping, but they'll wake up someday. And they did what you asked them to, but I don't think they would have done anything if they hadn't known that I didn't want Kurosaki-kun to die." She opened her eyes and smiled at him. "I'm glad you called them."

For the second time in their acquaintance, Ichigo stood, and bowed to her. "Thank you, Orihime."

"So, Kurosaki-kun has come back from the future! Did it have robots?"

"…only from November, sorry. No robots."

Orihime's smile now seemed slightly forced. "Kurosaki-kun, did I ever… did we…"

"Did you ever what, Inoue?"

She shook her head, biting her lip. "Never mind."

"Is something wrong?"

Ishida, looking uncomfortably out the window, took off his glasses and palmed his face. Moron. She deserved better.

Ukitake, walking through the open door with the completed memory projector, caught the tail-end of the conversation, took in the scene, and chose not to interrupt. Behind him, Kyoraku Shuunsui chuckled lightly. " 'And you just keep ignoring them', I believe is what he said."

The quiet murmur caught the attention of the room's occupants. "Ukitake-san! Kyoraku-san!" Ichigo turned to face the two, glad to see with his own eyes that Kyoraku was all right. Of the captains that Ichigo had fought, he had been the worst injured.

"Is this too early, Kurosaki-san?" Ukitake asked.

"Inoue just woke up, so we haven't had breakfast yet, but we can get started."

"No need to skip a meal, Ichigo-san," Kyoraku said, flagging down a passing unseated officer in the Fourth and requesting breakfast for three, while Ukitake made the introductions before turning to Ichigo.

"Here is the completed memory projector," Ukitake said, handing him what looked a great deal like…

"A snow globe?" Orihime asked, confused. The Research and Development Institute had put the projection stone onto a solid base and covered it with a transparent sphere, and tiny motes of light flickered inside of the sphere around the stone.

"The machinery in the base helps to retrieve a certain memory and connects it to Kurosaki-san's reiatsu," Ukitake explained to the three. "The projection stone then shows us everything that his reiatsu was touching at the time. The retrieval isn't perfect, unfortunately, and some practice will be necessary before Kurosaki-san is able to show a complete sequence of memories."

"And the snow?" Ishida asked.

"Those are small kido-based recording devices that are also connected to the instruments in the bottom of the projector. With Kurosaki-san's permission, we will be recording some of his memories for anyone who cannot be present when he initially shows them. If there are any memories you wish to display that that you do not consider necessary for our officers to know, just flick this switch." Ukitake demonstrated, and the lights went from white to the same light blue as the crystal, although they still floated randomly within the sphere.

His conscience nagged him slightly about misleading the three humans. The kido recorders were Mayuri's solution to the order that he keep Ichigo under observation. The recorders were in no way connected to the sekkiseki stone; they simply recorded visuals in a three-hundred-sixty degree arc around the projector. They also could not be turned off; the only difference between the two positions of the switch was where the data was sent. In the position Ukitake had identified to Ichigo as 'on', the recording would be stored on a chip within the base and would be considered as available for general consumption, assuming there were no other security issues with releasing the information. If it was in the 'off' position, the data would be transmitted directly to a monitoring station in the first division that had been set up specifically for this purpose, and would be reviewed by Yamamoto, Kyoraku, or Mayuri's vice-captain before they passed anything of importance on to the captains and Urahara.

"Please channel your reiatsu into the projector, Kurosaki-san." Ichigo picked up his new snow-globe and began putting his spirit pressure into the stone until it showed the same mix of colors it had shown when he attuned it to his reiatsu, both inside the crystal and in the area around Ichigo.

"Now, think of a specific memory. Try to keep it at the front of your mind, and let the memory retriever put it into your reiatsu."

"Like what?" Ichigo asked, as he tried to let the memory retriever do its job. He could feel it connecting between his memory and his reiatsu, but he wasn't yet giving it anything tangible. Vague flickers of shapes began to show within the colors surrounding them.

"Something innocuous at first. Your classroom at your school, perhaps."

Ichigo focused, and tried to call up a memory of the classroom. Ghostlike images appeared around them as memory after memory flickered through his thoughts, some of which Ishida and Orihime recognized as school classes within the last year, others that were clearly from much longer ago. Ichigo in each one stood slightly behind a transparent image of his past self, which was at the center of each projection and surrounded the memory projector in the real Ichigo's outstretched hand.

"You were a cute little boy, Kurosaki-kun!"

"This is a common problem, Ichigo-san," Kyoraku said, smiling. "It can be difficult to hold onto a single memory rather than call up several that you associate with the word 'classroom'. Try choosing a specific lesson, and focus on that rather than on the physical location."

"Have you used one of these before?" Ichigo asked him.

"I was one of the captains who volunteered to test the invention, after a few of the bugs were worked out. They're useful as a party trick, but the crystals wear out after a few years."

Ichigo nodded, and managed to center his mind on a lesson from a couple of months ago. They were soon surrounded by ghostly figures of Ichigo's classmates.

"Kurosaki, who's that?"

"She'll be our math teacher next year."

"Oh."

"Try increasing the flow of your reiatsu," Kyoraku said. "The images can get a lot clearer."

Ichigo did in increments, _very _cautiously, and the ghosts became more solid. As the memory progressed, they started hearing sounds, from the teacher's lecture to Tatsuki hissing at Chizuru to stop passing notes to Orihime. Soon, the memories looked and sounded as real as the people in the current time, and Orihime passed her hand through her future self's face, wide-eyed, as she watched it disappear. Kyoraku pushed his hat back and gave a low whistle. He was sitting half-in, half out of a student's desk, and although his chair was up against the wall of the real room, behind him the image projected more students and the front of the classroom. He tapped the wall behind him, and it appeared as though he was hitting only air.

"Not bad."

"Try switching to a different memory, please. You will need to be able to reliably retrieve a single memory relatively quickly."

"Any requests?" Ichigo asked, becoming more confident now that he had a good idea of the amount of reiatsu that should be flowing into the projector to give a clear image.

"Pretty women!" and as Ichigo looked at Kyoraku, startled, he lost his focus and their surroundings began shifting dizzyingly quickly to the images that came to mind for Ichigo when he heard those words. Ukitake and Kyoraku recognized several of the images; Rukia and Matsumoto, sometimes in school uniforms and sometimes in shihakusho, were featured prominently. Orihime blushed slightly to see herself in several, once in a white outfit she didn't recognize. Tatsuki was present, as were several of their other classmates. Some images showed a buxom green-haired woman fighting a tall thin man; one that no-one recognized had a cute brunette walking along a string of lights in a mall. Suddenly the entire projection blanked out as Ichigo gave up on directing the flow and just stopped inserting his reiatsu.

"Interesting, Kurosaki-san. Now perhaps, if you would care to focus on a single one of those images?" Ukitake said to the beet-red boy, chuckling.

"Try the one on the beach," Kyoraku said unrepentantly. "Was that really the entire Shinigami Women's Association in bathing suits? Retsu-san's kept her figure."

"I've what, Kyoraku-san?" They turned to the doorway to see both Unohana and Isane, leading a procession carrying breakfast for the residents of the room.

"Nothing."

They waited to continue the conversation until the unseated officers were gone and the door had been closed behind them. Unohana and Isane both clearly intended to stay; Isane's thin excuse was the beginning of a healing kido on Ichigo's stomach, and Unohana did not bother with a justification besides her curiosity.

"Perhaps if you tried to focus on a memory that most of us were there for, Kurosaki-san?" Ukitake suggested, changing the subject away from one about all of the female occupants of the room in bathing suits. "It would be interesting to see the destruction of the Sokyoku stand from a closer perspective."

Ichigo nodded and focused on the memory. That was easier; it was not something he would ever forget. The audience watched in awe as the events that most of them had only seen from the ground, and that Ishida and Orihime had not been present for at all, were replayed from an extremely close view. They could almost feel the heat from the phoenix as he fended it off, and Ukitake and Kyoraku saw themselves arrive far below their feet as they eliminated the giant bird. Rukia was freed, and hurled down to Renji, and finally the illusory Ichigo casually eliminated the vice-captains of the first, second, and fourth divisions with his bare hands. He stopped the projection at Isane's gasp.

"Sorry."

"It's OK."

"You seem to have the general idea, Kurosaki-san," Ukitake said, rising from his seat "and we should allow you three to eat. Can you continue to practice on your own?"

"Yeah, I think I've got it down. Thanks."

"I will tell Yamamoto-soutaicho that we can proceed with Gin's court-martial tomorrow, then. Are you still prepared to serve as a witness?" Ichigo nodded, and the shinigami gave their goodbyes and filed out of the room, leaving the teenagers to breakfast. When they were finished, Ichigo asked the other two,

"Anything you'd like to see?"

There was a brief silence, as they thought about possible requests, and then Ishida said suddenly, "Yes. I want to see myself fighting. I want to see that I got my powers back."

Ichigo nodded, and raised the projector, trying to control the memories. He remembered Ishida and Chad standing together against the two arrancar in Hueco Mundo before they had met Nel, and the memory flowed into place around them. The Forest of Menos, and how Ishida had destroyed a number of Menos Grande easily. The image flickered briefly to the fight with Muramasa as he remembered Ishida taking out the hollows Muramasa released, and as he saw that memory Ichigo wrenched his mind away from it and onto a different one. Unfortunately, it was one he had never seen consciously.

Ishida watched his future self, flying away with a black sword through his stomach- a sword he had seen just the day before in Kurosaki's hand. The creature that had taken Kurosaki's place in the projection, though, was like nothing he had seen even in his worst nightmares. He looked at the image wide-eyed as it blinked out.

"Kurosaki, _what was that?"_

Ichigo was breathing hard, trying not to be sick. "I- I don't remember what happened there. When I woke up, my sword was in your stomach." He raised the projector. "Will you guys watch it with me?" There was no-one who deserved to see it more.

"Why don't you start from the beginning, Kurosaki."

Ichigo nodded, still shaken. "Aizen had kidnapped Inoue. I don't know if he wanted her powers or if he just wanted a distraction, but Soul Society decided that she'd betrayed us." Focusing carefully, he recalled the entire conversation with Ukitake and Yamamoto that had led to that conclusion, and the retrieval of the shinigami stationed in Karakura by Byakuya and Kenpachi. They watched silently as the illusory Ichigo asked for help getting to Hueco Mundo to retrieve her alone.

/ "_Unacceptable," the old man on the screen said. "Your powers are necessary for this battle. I won't allow for selfish actions, or a meaningless death. Stand by for further orders."/_

Ichigo let the projection end.

"Did you listen?" Ishida asked.

"Don't be stupid. And, Inoue, don't go off without us, no matter who they threaten. We'll just come after you." The next memory was brief, and showed Ichigo, Ishida, and Chad travelling through a garganta. "Geta-boshi opened up a garganta for us to get to Hueco Mundo. Rukia and Renji caught up on the way. When we got to Las Noches, Aizen's palace, we separated. I got in fights with the middle three Espada…"

"Espada?" Ishida interrupted.

"The ten strongest arrancar. The fourth, Ulquiorra, was tough. Really tough."

He showed their first encounter in Hueco Mundo.

/ _"You may be the enemy, but you haven't hurt any of my friends yet."_

"_I see. Would that still apply if I told you I was the one who forced Inoue Orihime to come to Hueco Mundo?_" /

They watched as the fight began, as it got more serious as Ichigo went into Bankai and put on his mask, and finally as Ulquiorra revealed his rank and pierced Ichigo through the chest with his bare hand.

"How did you survive that, Kurosaki?"

"Another Arrancar, the sixth espada, brought Inoue to heal me. He wanted to fight me again." Their surroundings flickered to the fight with Grimmjow before Ichigo managed to cut the images off. That wasn't the point of this story.

"Later, we fought again." Ichigo focused, and managed to show only flashes of the beginning of their last fight, speeding through at a much faster rate than it had actually taken. It wasn't as convenient as a fast-forward button, but it was something. He was starting to get the hang of this. He stopped when Ulquiorra had him by the neck, and they watched the horned boy go into his second release in real time.

"I saw the guy who was supposed to be their strongest later on, and this was worse. I don't know why he didn't tell Aizen about his second release, but he was the strongest Aizen had. Has, now, I guess." The image wavered while Ichigo was talking, but didn't stop or blink out; it was becoming easier to keep a single memory in his head.

The fight continued, and as the future Orihime arrived off to the side, Ulquiorra sent a Grand Rey Cero through Ichigo's chest, and the projection went dark.

"Are you unconscious, Kurosaki?"

"I might have been dead. I'm not really sure." Suddenly, Ichigo heard an inner voice calling him, and cut off the darkness that surrounded them, leaving them blinking in the bright light of their room in the fourth division.

"Hang on a second." He reached and pulled, and the spirits of his sword and mask appeared, flanking his chair where he sat next to Orihime's bed.

"Kurosaki-kun, what…" Orihime asked, wide-eyed.

"Oh… this is Zangetsu-no-ossan and my hollow." The older man nodded to her, while the hollow snorted and looked away. "They wanted to come out. Why?" he asked the brunette.

"It will be easier if we see this with you. Continue." Ichigo shrugged, raised his hand, and let the projected darkness return. There was no light, and no sound until a call for help rang through the darkness. A few heartbeats later, and the light returned, and the projected Ichigo had become a creature that the current Ichigo had only seen in his nightmares.

/ _"Kuro…saki?" Ishida asked in astonishment._

"_Who are you?" Ulquiorra asked, eyes narrowed._

_The orange-haired hollow gave no answer save to summon his sword. A single swing sent both Inoue and Ishida tumbling away just from the air pressure, and the hollow roared._

"_It looks like words are useless," and Ulquiorra charged up a Cero Oscuras that was countered by the hollowified Ichigo's own Cero_. /

They watched as the fight continued, as Ulquiorra regenerated his arm and explained his regenerative ability, and as his first Lanza del Relampago missed its target. His second was effortlessly stopped by his opponent, and Ulquiorra was defeated with one final blow. Although in similar situations Ichigo had held off on destroying his defeated opponents, the hollowified Ichigo showed no such mercy, and fired a Cero into the downed arrancar at point-blank range.

"Good instincts," the hollow said approvingly. Ichigo looked at him, sickened.

"That was disgusting!"

"There isn't any other way to keep an opponent with high-speed regeneration down, idiot. You've got to destroy enough major organs in one shot that there's no way they can regenerate. It's a good idea to decapitate them too, just to make sure." The hollowified Ichigo was preparing to do just that when Ishida intervened.

"And, Quincy, that was fucking stupid."

/ _"Can't you hear me, Kurosaki? I said stop it! If you keep this up, you won't be human anymore!"_

_The black daito approached Ulquiorra's neck relentlessly._

"_Kurosaki!"_

_The monster looked at him. The black sword flashed. Ishida flew away, Ichigo's zanpakuto in his stomach_. /

The projection blinked out as Ichigo dropped the snow-globe with a gasp. He sat there, hyperventilating, his breath the only sound in the room. When his breathing calmed, Zangetsu-no-ossan picked up the projector from where it had rolled to his feet, and handed it back to Ichigo.

"Finish it." His voice was calm and detached, without either condemnation or sympathy.

Ichigo raised the projector, and his hollowified former self formed around his hand, with the projector still visible in the middle of the hollow hole.

/_ "Ishida-kun!"_

_Ichigo looked at Orihime._

"_Help… Help you. I'll help you."_/

The real Orihime gasped, recalling the scream that had brought Ichigo back to life.

"For me…"

The hollow in the image began forming a cero, only to be stopped by Ulquiorra's final strike, which shattered his mask. Ichigo collapsed, then displayed that he could regenerate as well, as the wounds that had reduced him to the berserk hollowified state in the first place were completely healed. They witnessed Ichigo's reaction to learning what he had done, and the offer to finish the fight fairly with Ulquiorra by cutting off his own arm and leg- an offer that was too late, as the arrancar began dissolving before they could resume. At the end, Ulquiorra reached out to Orihime, and Ichigo ended the projection.

"Kurosaki…"

"Kurosaki-kun…"

Both his friends started speaking at the same time, but were cut off by the abrupt movement of the hollow, who had unwrapped his sword.

He stabbed Ichigo in the back. The sword sunk in without resistance.

"WHAT THE HELL, BASTARD!"

"Just checking," the hollow grinned.

"AND WHAT IF IT HAD HURT?"

"Then me and you would have seen if you were still king."

Ichigo stared at him, breathing hard, but at least distracted from past events. He transferred his gaze to Zangetsu-no-ossan.

"Is _that_ why you wanted to come out?"

"If you were once more at war with yourself, better that we know now than when we depart."

"Bastards… just… go. Just go."

"If you don't want that to happen again, King, learn to hollowify. Control it, or it will control you." With that parting shot, both spirits disappeared into Ichigo's soul, leaving Ichigo slumped over with his head in his hands.

"It hasn't happened, Kurosaki. You haven't killed him, and I've never been stabbed in the stomach."

"He saved your life."

"I doubt he meant to."

"Kurosaki-kun, thank you for trying to protect me. Even when you were dying, you were trying to protect me. That's… that's all you wanted to do."

"_It shouldn't have happened._" Ichigo clenched his hands around the projector.

"It hasn't, Kurosaki. Don't let it."

Ichigo just let himself breath for a moment, then finally nodded. "I won't." He looked at Ishida. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it, Kurosaki. _Please,_ don't mention it."

"No, I mean… for stopping me. For trying to stop me. Thank you." The black-haired Quincy nodded.

"Have you been to any good movies lately, Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime's cheerful voice broke the moment, and the two teenage boys looked at her in bemusement at the non-sequitur.

"Movies?"

"You need to practice, don't you?"

Ichigo gave a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. Somehow, she usually managed to know what to say to make everything seem not so bad.

"Next season's are going to suck, but there was a good concert…" and he raised the projector again, calling up the memory.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

The four most senior captains left the observation room to the vigilance of Chojiro Sakisabe, who had sent a messenger to them as soon as it became clear that it was a recording they would wish to see immediately.

"So, that is the height of his potential power," Unohana said, shaken by seeing the young man whose life she had saved reduced to a mindless beast.

"His combined form was more powerful, I would say, but he is reluctant to enter that state. We really should get Gin or Kurosaki, or both, to show that memory tomorrow. What he just displayed is the power he may be able to learn to access at will; at least, if his hollow is correct," Shuunsui murmured. "The hollow Ulquiorra was almost certainly a Vasto Lord before he became an arrancar, and Kurosaki defeated him easily."

"We knew he was powerful. More disturbing is his complete _rejection_ of any sort of common sense when he went after the girl," Yamamoto growled, his eyes opened slightly in anger.

"At the risk of criticizing your future self, Sensei, it was perhaps not wise to give an order that you knew would not be obeyed," Ukitake ventured. "You ensured that our forces were recalled, but Kurosaki-san was not a part of the withdrawal, and everything we saw of him even before he came back in time indicated that he would follow a friend in danger. His loyalties are clear."

"Three worlds in danger, Kurosaki the only one able to see past Aizen's sword, and the boy goes off chasing skirts!"

Kyoraku's smile widened to a grin as he pushed back his hat. "The girl's preference is kind of obvious, but I don't think that's Kurosaki's motivation. Unless you think he's got the same feelings for Kuchiki Rukia, I think we'll just have to assume he'd go after any of his friends the same way." He remembered a young giant, willing to sacrifice his life force for the slightest possibility that it would help Ichigo. "They'd do the same for him."

"Hmph. Infants."

" 'You also have weaknesses. You gather them around you and hold them close. And I know all of their names.'" Ukitake quoted from memory. "Aizen Sosuke will use that against him. He may have already done so in their combined past."

"Sometimes sacrifices must be made. Trying to save one person and putting millions at risk is a child's choice."

"He is so very young, though, for the burdens we are placing onto him," Unohana said quietly. "Do you truly wish to destroy that last shred of innocence?"

"Sometimes sacrifices must be made," Yamamoto repeated, his eyes narrowed into slits once more.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Shinji, his toothy grin utterly absent from his face, looked grimly at the screen where Urahara's fan covered his face. Kurosaki Isshin and all seven of Shinji's kin were sitting in the common room, waiting for news of the greatest upheaval in their lives since they had fled Soul Society. The twins and Chad had been in bed for several hours.

_"_We were fighting with the shinigami?"

"Kurosaki-san has no reason to lie, and my calculations suggest that Mayuri is correct in his assertion that it is impossible to project a false memory. We will see the truth of his words when he shows the fight he spoke of." Urahara paused, and let his hat cover his eyes. "Did you know what you would choose?"

They glanced at each other. "No," Rose said. "We have nothing in common with them. Not anymore."

"We owe you. We owe Aizen. The rest of them can hang out to dry," Love agreed.

"Thanks, _taicho_." Isshin said dryly. He had been Love's vice-captain a century ago, and had stepped into Love's position when the former captain of the Seventh had been hollowified. He had been on at least cordial terms with most of the Vizard, but, like the rest of the Gotei 13, had not questioned the will of the Central 46.

"Present company excepted, of course!" Mashiro chimed in.

"The Central 46 is dead, and the only captains left from your day are the oldest four. The institution is changing, man! My son seems to have been able to find a great deal of common ground with them."

"They'll use him and turn on him the second they don't need him anymore," Lisa snapped.

"According to Yoruichi, that option was considered, and discarded. He seems to have made an impression, Isshin-san!" Urahara said cheerfully, fluttering his fan across his face.

"That's my boy!"

"Idiot!" Hiyori slammed her sandal into Isshin's head. "Are we just going to take this lying down? We owe him some massive pain! Are we just going to let some brat that can't even kill his own hollow come and take that away from us?"

"Be careful how you speak of my son, Sarugaki," Isshin said, abruptly serious. "Ichigo's a good kid."

"Before I forget, Kurosaki-san asked Yoruichi to pass on a message," Urahara said.

"I'll give it to the girls when they get up."

"Not for you, Isshin-san. He said that you would already know anything he had to say. It was for the rest of you. 'Seventy minutes even. I broke Hyori's record.'"

The assembled vizards did the math. "Hmm…" Hachi said. "If I am not included in the calculations…"

"What does that mean?" Isshin asked.

"It means we came pretty close to killing him," Shinji said, his cheshire cat grin spreading over his face. "I think I like your kid, Isshin."

Hiyori just twitched. '_Little punk…'_.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Author's Note: **(Update info/teaser at the end)**

Meh. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, and it will probably forever be dubbed 'the housekeeping section' in my mind. I literally had a checklist of stuff I needed to write in order to actually start advancing the plot: learn to use the memory projector, talk with Rukia and Renji and Yoruichi, learn external manifestation, wake up Orihime, HollowOfDeath scene. This chapter is so long because I wanted to get through that. Originally the first training session with Yoruichi and Soifon was in this chapter, but it was thirty pages long without formatting so I decided to move it to the next one. Then I realized that the reiatsu-training scene sucked and added the whole bit where Ichigo goes into Bankai and talks to Tensa Zangetsu, which totally defeated the attempt to make it shorter. At the request of several reviewers, I added a scene with the Vizards, and I will be making them a more prominent part of the story than I originally had planned.

The next update will be **the Saturday after next**; the chapter is only half-way written and the final draft of my thesis is due this week, so I'll be frantically revising that instead of writing fanfic. It will contain, at a minimum, the first training session with Yoruichi, Gin's court-martial, and Ichigo's view of the fight on Sokyoku Hill. **The teaser:**

"If you move, Kurosaki, the illusion will not follow you. Can you take him out in one blow without killing him?"

See you in a couple of weeks!


	6. Chapter 5 Tenses and Trials

Special thanks go to the anonymous reviewers 'marc' and 'DBZLover', both of whom reviewed the last chapter right away to point out that I'd put Shinji in Bankai when he'd never released it, prompting some rapid edits. If you ever notice something like that, please mention it!

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

01/31/2011 edit: The name for Yamamoto's bankai was changed to Yōyū Uchigami (溶融土神), traslated as 'Melting Earth God', from the Google-translator derived Yōyū Chikyū Akuma (Molten Earth Demon) at the suggestion of the reviewer Reikson. Thanks for the translation!

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

As the projection ended, scattered clapping came from the doorway. The humans turned to find Matsumoto Rangiku and several unseated officers of the Fourth peering in at them. The healers scattered back to their duties while Matsumoto came into the room.

"Hi! Taicho's getting out today, so I came to meet him, and saw the show! When was that?"

"A couple of months from now," Ichigo answered, not quite sure how to respond to the ebullient blond woman. A companion who had never met him- did he introduce himself, or what?

"And who are you, miss?" Ishida asked, doing his best to keep his eyes on her face.

"Matsumoto Rangiku, Vice-captain of the Tenth Division. _He _knows me."

They looked at Ichigo, who nodded. "She was in the group sent to protect Karakura. She and Toshiro stayed with Inoue. She's Inoue Orihime, and he's Ishida Uryuu," he told Matsumoto to complete the introductions.

"I'm sure we would have been good friends, Matsumoto-san," Orihime said, bowing. Ishida nodded in acknowledgement.

Matsumoto bowed slightly back, then walked over to where Ichigo was sitting. Without any warning, she gave him an enveloping hug, pulling his face into her chest with one hand and wrapping her other arm around his torso while his hands came to rest on her hips.

"Mmph!"

"Matsumoto-san!" Orihime squeaked in dismay.

"Thank you." The words were almost a whisper.

Rangiku released Ichigo, who hadn't been struggling _quite_ as hard has he could have been, and let him gasp for breath.

"Don't… don't mention it," Ichigo said, wide-eyed and completely crimson.

"Aww, how sweet! You're blushing! You can't say you haven't seen my girls before, Shunsui came to tell me about the beach party right away!" She winked at him. "Or were you just not that close?"

Ichigo shook his head frantically, still blushing.

"Good, 'cause if you were the rebound guy that would've been _really_ awkward." She sat on the chair next to the window and adjusted her ample cleavage, the cheerful smile fading slightly.

" 'And she never stopped loving you', you said. I wasn't pining, was I? I can't stand women who can't get over a jerk."

"I think I saw you getting drunk with Kira once, right after Unohana let me out of here. I didn't ever hear you say his name, though, even in Karakura."

"Good. That _idiot_! Even when we were kids- always leaving and never saying where he was going!" She huffed.

"Why'd he do it?"

Matsumoto sobered, looking out the window and pressing a hand to her pelvis. "… he wanted to get back something that was stolen from me."

Ichigo shifted in the awkward silence that followed, extremely sorry he'd asked. He searched for a way to change the subject.

"So, how's Toshiro doing?"

Matsumoto grabbed onto the new topic eagerly. "Taicho's back on light duty, although Unohana-taicho won't let him do anything too physical. He's visiting Momo before we head out."

Ichigo froze. He'd have to show them that memory, wouldn't he… "Hinamori? They were pretty close, right?"

She looked at him sharply. "Were?"

"Are. Sorry. She got… _will get_ better." He got up. "I'm gonna go introduce myself. 'Scuse me."

"What was that about?" he heard Ishida ask Matsumoto as he left.

Ichigo found Hitsugaya Toshiro's reiatsu signature and tracked it to its origin, finding Hinamori's room relatively easily. The youngest captain was seated next to her bed, a fresh bouquet of plum blossoms on the stand next to him. He looked up as Ichigo paused in the doorway.

"Kurosaki Ichigo." He had been expecting the human to approach him, although not quite this soon.

"You know me? I mean, yeah, I guess you would." Ichigo took a breath, not quite sure how to broach the subject with the frigid young man. "Matsumoto said you were here visiting. You guys knew- _know_ each other pretty well, right?"

"All our lives," he answered flatly.

"Ah." Crap.

They looked at each other for a minute, before Hitsugaya broke the awkward silence.

"Did you come here to say something?"

"Um… yeah. I wanted to let about you know about Hinamori so you weren't surprised…" and he felt a slight chill in the room as Toshiro turned back to the bed in alarm. Ichigo winced- he could have put that differently.

"She's fine! She'll get better! That wasn't what I meant!"

"What do you _want_, Kurosaki?" he asked, relaxing as the momentary fear that she was going to abruptly die passed.

Ichigo came into the room and grabbed the other chair, sitting at the foot of the bed.

"She'll wake up, although I heard that she was pretty broken up about Aizen leaving. She was there at the battle against him, though. That's why I came. Ukitake's shown me how to use one of Mayuri's memory projectors, and the fight with Aizen is probably going to be one of the first things you guys'll want to see.

"And, I don't think Aizen likes her much. Or maybe he doesn't like you, or both, I don't know…"

"He killed her." Toshiro said calmly, trying to stop the ryoka's rambling.

"No." Ichigo ran a hand through his ragged hair, reminding himself for the dozenth time to get it cut. "You know how he tricked everyone into attacking me? It wasn't the first time he pulled something like that."

Hitsugaya had the sinking feeling that he knew where this was going. "You mean…"

"Picture her in my place, and you in Jii-san's." He paused , but Toshiro didn't say anything. "Then you attacked him, and a few other people tried to stop you 'cause you were out of control and he'd have killed you, and he took you all down easily."

"Ah." Really, what could he say to that?

"So, I figured I'd let you know before you actually saw it. If you want, I can ask for a bathroom break or something before we get to that part, and you can leave."

"I assure you, Kurosaki, I am fully capable of carrying out my duties as a captain under any circumstances. Thank you for informing me." He kept his tone polite and professional.

"Not those," Ichigo muttered, rising. "She will get better, though. See you later, Toshiro."

"It's Hitsugaya-taicho, Kurosaki. I have not yet given you permission to address me so familiarly."

"Don't worry, you never did." Ichigo left the room while Higsaguya developed a twitch in one eye. Then Ichigo came back and stuck his head through the doorway again.

"And there's something else, too, but it'll take awhile to explain and it's not urgent. Can you find me sometime when you've got a few hours free?"

Ah, yes. The Royal Seal. Hitsugaya still couldn't imagine how he would have any involvement with one of the royal artifacts. He nodded curtly, and Ichigo left for good.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo was intercepted on the way back to his room by Isane, who had come to find him for his midday healing session. It had been a few months and he might not be remembering right, but Ichigo was pretty sure that he hadn't been healed three times a day the first time through, and it had been mostly with Hanataro and Orihime rather than Unohana and Isane. The Fourth was making a concerted effort to get him back in fighting shape.

"You are making good progress, Kurosaki-san," the tall healer said, smiling. "After a few more sessions, you will be fully healed."

"Really? It took a week last time," Ichigo said. "Can I let Yoruichi know we can start tomorrow, then?"

"With Unohana-taicho's permission, yes." As she was speaking, Hanataro returned from showing the crafts room to Ishida and Orihime and handed Ichigo a bento.

"Thanks, Hanataro. Hey, is there anyone in the Fourth who's any good at cutting hair?"

"Why, yes, Ichigo-san. Many of us ask Shirogane-san to-"

"She's busy," Isane said, the green light of the healing kido abruptly blinking out. Hanataro looked at her in confusion.

"But I just saw the roster, and I'm sure that she'd be happy to come by after working on the inventory-"

"No, she's very busy. She'll be at it all day. We have lots of supply problems, what with the invasion and the desertion and all."

"Well, perhaps Saido-san? He just has cleaning at the-"

"The Seireitei is _very dirty_ right now," Isane said, an uncharacteristically sharp tone in her voice.

"Of course, fukataicho," Hanataro said, still eager to please. "Kasaki-chan is working down the hall, and she's on break soon-"

"Her break has been cancelled. We have far too many beds filled for our healers to be slacking off."

"Never mind," Ichigo said. "It sounds like you guys don't need me to be bugging you. I'll head to a barber after Unohana lets me out of here."

Isane quickly ushered Hanataro out of the room and went to call an emergency meeting of the Shinigami Women's Association, while Ichigo lay back in his bottom bunk. He had been ignoring his powers since earlier that morning, and the hollow had been annoyingly loud ever since the concert ended. He sighed and closed his eyes.

Unohana hadn't cleared him to go into his inner world yet, and he kind of didn't want the hollow around for this conversation anyway. He reached into himself, synchronized with his power, and then focused on the calm, heavy presence he associated with his sword. He received a mental impression of the other part of his power flipping him off as Zangetsu-no-ossan materialized next to him.

"Have you finished sulking?"

Ichigo glared at him. "I think I've got a right to be mad about you guys deciding to backstab me."

"It was necessary."

"Like hell it was!"

"He needed to know if you would still be able to accept him, and his concern was reasonable. If anything would cause you to reject that part of yourself, it would be seeing yourself attack a friend."

"You could have waited!"

"We could have. It would not have made a difference in your choice, though, and I did not wish to be in your soul when you saw your actions."

The blunt statement was enough to distract Ichigo from his indignation. "What? Why?"

"It was raining. I hate the rain."

Ichigo rolled his eyes as Zangetsu-no-ossan moved to the window, looking out onto the pleasant garden.

"And what if it had hurt?"

"Then you would have been at war with yourself once again."

"And I'd have started the fight with a sword in my back!" Ichigo snapped. He didn't expect much from the hollow. From Zangetsu-no-ossan, though, that hurt.

The sword turned back to look at Ichigo reprovingly. "I had faith, Ichigo, that you would not give up the peace you fought for so easily."

Ichigo took a few deep breaths, processing that. Finally, he snorted.

"You call this _peaceful_?"

The sword's lips twitched up as the mood in the room relaxed. "For a certain value of 'peace', yes."

"How many more tests, old man? When'll it be over?" Ichigo got off the bed and joined his zanpakuto at the window.

"If you are not tested, you are not living, Ichigo," he answered, looking down at his wielder. "But if you did not reject him then, you never will. From us, there will be only one more."

"Just because I admit he's a part of me doesn't mean I want to be him."

"You fear that your heart will be overwhelmed by your destructive potential, Ichigo. The only way to prevent that from happening is to overwhelm your destructive potential with your heart. Control the transformation, or in your darkest moments, it will control you." The zanpakuto spirit moved towards the door, clearly considering the conversation finished. "Try to hold the manifestation as long as you can."

"Where are you going?"

"The garden. There are not enough trees in your soul."

Ichigo snorted again as the dark man left, and finally turned his attention to the inner voice he'd been ignoring. He closed his eyes, and reached into himself.

He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a white fist heading for his face.

"Ow! Whad da hell was dat!" Ichigo yelled, grabbing his nose. The hollow blinked at him.

"Huh. At least that still works." He jumped back to avoid the return swing. "Too slow."

"Did you just want to be annoying, or did you actually have something to say?" Ichigo asked, gritting his teeth and making sure his nose wasn't broken.

"I told you! When a girl that hot pulls your face to her chest, _take advantage of it_!"

Ichigo looked at him incredulously. "_That's _why you've been bugging me?"

"Why, did anything else important happen?"

"You stabbed me in the back!"

"So? You're fine. Stop whining about it. You don't have the time to be emo, King."

"Asshole. And Matsumoto's always like that. She's got a boyfriend, moron."

Before the hollow could respond, Hanataro and a male shinigami that Ichigo didn't know came into the room carrying scissors and a comb.

"Ichigo-san, Natsui-san is on his day off and said he wouldn't mind-" and both black-clad men stopped abruptly. The two young men framing the window, negative images of each other, turned in their direction, one with a cheerful grin and the other with a fearsome scowl.

"Ah. I see you're beside yourself again. We'll leave you two alone." With that, the healers quickly made their escape.

"Buncha spineless wimps."

"Are you why they've been so nervous around me?"

"Well, a lot of it was probably the stuff on the Hill." The hollow hopped onto the windowsill, then down to the ground. "The old man's communing with nature or some shit like that. Long as we're out, I'm gonna work on the Garganta. You should figure out how to sense the ground if you're not on a building."

"Like I'd listen to you."

"Got anything better to be doing?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes and followed him into the garden.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Deep within the bowels of the Kuchiki estate, the members of the Shinigami Women's Association faced the podium at the front of the room. Behind Ise Nanao were two large photos of Ichigo, both from the surveillance records from earlier that day. One was of Ichigo as he'd looked during the screen conference with Ukitake and Yamamoto, and the other was a current picture.

"We owe great thanks to Kotetsu-fukataicho for her prompt action. Are we all agreed that the calendar will sell better if he does not change his appearance before enough photos have been taken?"

Grim nods came from around the room.

"Then it is settled. You have your assignments, ladies. Do not fail us!"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

The next morning, Ishida and Orihime followed Ichigo as he led them to the first division. They got an unseated officer to lead them to the meeting room, and Ichigo opened the large double doors while she scurried away. They entered together and saw most of the captains already present and talking quietly.

"Kurosaki Ichigo. Your presence is necessary at these proceedings, but your friends were not invited," Kuchiki Byakuya said coolly, staring at the two powerless humans.

"Yeah, but it'll save time if I don't have to show everything twice," Ichigo said, walking past him without pausing and clearly not seeing anything wrong with Ishida and Orihime's presence at the court martial of a captain.

"We'll be very quiet!" Orihime said cheerfully. Ishida nearly laughed at the annoyance that Byakuya was too controlled to let show on his face, but which was evident in the slight stiffening of his body and the twitch of his hand towards Senzbonzakura. The nobleman was distracted, however, by the entrance of Yamamoto, Ukitake, Unohana, and Gin. The captains settled into their double lines while the humans stood off to the side with Yoruichi, Yamamoto's vice-captain Sakisabe Chojiro , and Shuunsui's vice-captain Ise Nanao, who was present as the secretary. Yamamoto and Gin stood opposite each other at the head and foot of the lines.

There was not as much tension in the room as might be expected. The proceedings were mostly a formality; Unohana had already testified in a meeting the day after the betrayal that Aizen had killed the Central 46 himself. Gin had cooperated fully with Ukitake's investigation into his past and Aizen's actions, and his desertion of Aizen when he was rising triumphant into the sky spoke volumes for itself. When asked why he hadn't betrayed Aizen to Seireitei's government earlier, his answer had simply been "Him or me. Who would ya have believed?" And, of course, they did not wish to have to replace three captains; they were going to have enough trouble just filling the slots in the Fifth and Ninth Divisions. Gin was still filling out paperwork and attending meetings as the acting captain of the Third Division, although he was under escort at all times when absent from his cell in the first division headquarters. Unless Ichigo's memories were significantly different from what he had described to Gin on Sokyoku Hill, the trial would be swift and the sentence lenient.

After the initial formalities, Unohana gave her testimony to all of the captains once again for the record. Ukitake gave the results of the preliminary investigation into Aizen's actions, emphasizing that all of the verifiable information that Gin had provided had been accurate and that some, like the library records concerning the King's Key, would have taken weeks to find without Gin's help. Mayuri was the third witness, and was required to state for the record that the memory projector's images could not be falsified, and that all of the information Gin and Ichigo had showed or would show using the projectors was true to the best of their ability to sense. Finally, Ichigo was called as the second-to-last witness in the proceedings. He flicked the switch on the base of the snow-globe to the 'record' setting, and projected the image he'd decided to start with. The surroundings changed to a completely realistic, flawless image of a Senkaimon gate in an open field. Mayuri, seeing the clarity of the projection, narrowed his eyes in speculation.

"You and Urahara'd worked together to switch Karakura with a model, so Aizen had to go to Soul Society to make the King's Key. Me and Dad followed him." The image of Ichigo, with Isshin in full shinigami garb on one shoulder, raised his head and narrowed his eyes. "I could feel that Aizen was near some friends of mine." The projected Ichigo began to flash step, but because the projection was centered around Ichigo it was the landscape around them that began going past sickeningly quickly. In seconds, Karakura was under their feet and Gin and Aizen were approaching from the front, talking, when suddenly Gin placed a hand on Aizen's sword.

"Tatsuki-chan," Orihime gasped, the only one in the room with any attention to spare from the main action. Their friends, Don Kanonji, and a shinigami with an afro were the only other things moving in the entire city.

As Shinsou stabbed through Gin's concealing coat and hit Aizen's heart, the projected Ichigo stopped in shock, and let himself drop to the top of a building next to where the two men were confronting each other. The captains looked down with him as Gin, deep in the floor below them, confessed to working with Aizen for decades simply to learn his weakness, as he told Aizen the true form of his Bankai, and as Aizen's body began dissolving from the heart outwards.

"Got the bastard," the real Gin said in satisfaction. It had been worth it, just for that image.

"Um…"

Aizen arched and screamed, and suddenly was fully healed and standing in midair with the Hogyoku once more in his chest and butterfly wings projecting from his back.

After a moment of shocked silence, Kenpachi started guffawing. Shunsui's shoulders were shaking silently, and Ukitake, Hitsugaya, and Unohana had brought hands to their faces to hide smiles. Gin did not bother hiding his unusually wide grin. "You've gotta be kidding."

"I wish. It got worse."

Ichigo waited a minute to let the mood settle, and then continued through Aizen's explanation of his and Urahara's separate creations of a Hogyoku and the decision to merge them together, before Aizen casually ripped Gin's arm off and thanked him for making him afraid. The projected Ichigo moved in just after Matsumoto threw her body on top of Gin's, and he ended the projection with his double standing between the two lovers and Aizen. The real Gin had stepped forward involuntarily, showing more reaction to Matsumoto's appearance than he had to his own fatal wounds, and stared at the empty space behind Ichigo where her image had been before remembering himself and returning to his spot at the foot of the lines.

"What happened then, kid?" he asked.

"I don't know about you guys. I moved the fight outside of town, away from my friends. It kinda looked like you were dead, though."

"What happened to _her_?"

Ichigo wasn't sure what to say. It was still kind of weird to think of the fox-faced man caring for anyone. "Um... she was alive when I left. Tatsuki knows first aid." Gin snorted, clearly unimpressed.

"Kurosaki Ichigo, did you observe any of Ichimaru Gin's activities at any time between his desertion and this event?" Yamamoto asked, bringing the focus back to the trial.

"Just the fight above Karakura, and I didn't get there until after it had started. He was mostly just watching. Should I…?" He raised the projector again, but was stopped by Yamamoto.

"Not now, unless it is relevant to the trial." More than one of the observers sighed in disappointment. The captain-commander continued, "In your past, did he assault any members of the Gotei 13?"

Ichigo thought for a minute. "Rukia and Byakuya, when he deserted. Byakuya was at the Fourth for a few days. People were hurt when I got to Karakura, but no one was dead, and I don't know if he'd been fighting with anyone else. He fought me, but he wasn't taking it seriously." His sword had been empty again; Gin's focus had been elsewhere.

"So he would have injured _Kuchiki-taicho_," and an emphasis was placed on the title that Ichigo utterly ignored, "if you and Aizen Sosuke had not changed the timeline?" Ichigo nodded.

"A verbal response is required for the record, Kurosaki-san," Ise Nanao called out from the side of the room.

"Um, yeah. He would have."

"That memory is relevant, then."

Ichigo shrugged and raised the projector. He started with his arrival on the hill, and they watched as he blocked Aizen's blow with Tensa Zangetsu, the brief argument with Renji, and their team attack on Aizen. The observers winced as Aizen blocked Ichigo's attack with a single finger and sliced him open, then defeated Renji effortlessly. They listened in silence to Aizen's entire calm discussion of the distraction Ichigo and his friends had caused, and of his research into hollowification.

"Hollows that could fuse with soul reapers," Ukitake murmured in stunned realization. Ichigo winced. That hollow hadn't died like Ukitake thought it had, and Ukitake's lieutenant's … shit. _His cousin's_ soul had been devoured and was being used by the ninth Espada. From all accounts, Kaien had been a decent guy, too.

In the projection, Aizen continued monologing about the Hogyoku and Urahara's attempt to destroy it until Komamura attacked and, like with Ichigo, Aizen stopped his sword with his bare hand. The present Komamura watched grimly as Aizen casually strolled forward while Komamura's projected image was still yelling at Tosen and the space where he had believed Aizen to be.

/_"I'm sorry, Tosen. Ban-kai!"_

_Suddenly, Komamura looked down at the man in front of him, his eyes widening._

"_Hado 90. Black coffin."/_

"I couldn't see him at all."

/_"Oh, yes, Kuchiki Rukia. When you were discovered in the world of the living, the first thing I did was eliminate the Central 46."/_

"I believe that is a clearer confession of guilt than I received from him, Yamamoto-soutaicho," Unohana said. "There is no evidence that either Ichimaru-taicho or Tosen Kaname took part in the massacre."

_/"I carefully researched everything that Urahara Kisuke ever did," the pleasant-faced, brown-haired man with glasses explained "because implanting foreign objects into a spirit is a technique that he invented. So naturally, the extraction procedure must also be hidden somewhere in his research records."_

_He stuck his hand into the chest of the small black-haired woman trembling in front of him and extracted a small black ball imbedded inside a transparent crystal. He raised it up in front of his eyes._

"_So this is the Hogyoku-"/_

"This is when we came back," Ichigo said.

/_"Unfortunately, you are no longer needed. Kill her, Gin."_

"_All right," the fox-faced man said, drawing his sword. "Shoot to kill, Shinsou."_/

A strangled cry rose from half-a dozen throats as the sword flashed forward to kill the young woman- and was intercepted by her brother.

Byakuya released a small breath. So he had kept his promise, at the last.

/_"Nii-sama!"_/

"He was on his way already. I didn't change that," Ichigo said, carefully not looking in his direction.

In the image, Yoruichi and Soifon arrived with their blades at his stomach and throat, and the gatekeepers and Kukaku showed up and began fighting each other. Off to the side, Gin and Tosen were captured by Matsumoto and Hisagi, and Yamamoto, Ukitake, Shuunsui, Ise, Iba, and Omeada surrounded the man and the two women holding him at knifepoint. Over their heads, a buzzing sound started, and the Negacion came down.

/_ "It's too bad. I wouldn't have minded being your prisoner a while longer. Goodbye, Rangiku." Gin looked back at her with what would perhaps be the only sincere expression anyone would ever see on his face. "I'm sorry."_/

Yamamoto listened as his double gave them the same explanation he had given Ichigo five days previous, and Komamura nodded in satisfaction as his image rose despite his wounds and demanded answers of his best friend.

/ "_I told you, Komamura. I follow the path least soaked in blood. Justice is there always._

"_The path I walk _is_ justice."_/

They heard Aizen's ambitions from his own mouth, and saw him destroy forever the appearance of the man they had thought they had known.

/ "_Goodbye, shinigami. And, goodbye, ryoka boy. You were interesting, for a human."_/

"Asshole," Ichigo muttered, letting the projection fade away.

"Was there nothing you could have said to Tosen, Kurosaki, to cause him to make a different choice?" Komamura asked.

"No. I tried." Sanctimonious prick… but Komamura was OK, and had just lost his best friend. Ichigo managed to dredge up some courtesy. "Sorry." The wolf nodded, bowing his head.

"Thank you, Kurosaki Ichigo. I believe we have seen enough." Ichigo rejoined his friends at the side of the room, and Yamamoto called Gin forward.

"For the record, and for the benefit of the captains who were not present at the time, show the events on Sokyoku Hill as you recall them." Ichigo would be showing them his own memories of the event eventually, but for the trial, only what Gin knew before he had deserted Aizen was pertinent.

Gin raised his own snow-globe and turned its recorders on. Unlike the memory projector that had been given to Ichigo, his had a genuine off-switch. He allowed his reiatsu to flow into the crystal, and it began to project an image.

The difference between Gin's projection and Ichigo's were immediately apparent. The images were faded and ghostly, and the surrounding sounds were muted.

"Hey, is your rock broken?" Kenpachi asked Mayuri, who was standing next to him.

"The clarity of the projection depends on the reiatsu of the user," Mayuri sneered. "The projection stone is perfectly functional."

Gin's smile faded and his eyes opened slightly as he focused more of his reiatsu into the projector. The ghosts solidified, but still did not approach the realism of Ichigo's projection. The captains, those who had not already been aware of Unohana's analysis of Ichigo's reiatsu, compared the effort Gin was expending to the casual use of the memory projector Ichigo had displayed and came to the correct conclusion.

Gin had begun the projection at Komamura's attack, and his projection showed the same scene as Ichigo had, showing that Aizen had not been bothering to hypnotize Gin at the time. The scenes were identical until Aizen reached into Rukia's chest and brought out the black rock, commenting on its small size.

_/ "So this is the Hogyoku-"_

_That was as far as he got before both he and the boy lying near his feet began screaming._

"_Aizen! What's wrong?" Tosen yelled uselessly. Gin grabbed his shoulder before he could run to knock the stone out of Aizen's hand._

"_I don't think he'd appreciate our buttin' in," Gin said, smiling. _

"_Something's gone wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen!"_

"_Aizen-taicho'll be able to handle it. Just watch him." Gin paused. "From a safe distance." Tosen hesitated, then nodded, and the two men flash-stepped back, leaving Aizen, Rukia, and Ichigo together._

"_ICHIGO!" Rukia cried, after the two screaming men had fallen silent._

"_The ryoka… where did he go?" Tosen asked Gin, confused._

"_Eh? He's right there. Huh… I can't sense his reiatsu." Gin turned his smile to Tosen. "Can ya see him at all?"_

_Tosen tightened his lips at Gin's mocking tone. They watched as Aizen strode over to the boy in black struggling to rise to his knees, and were both able to hear their brief exchange before Aizen brought his sword down. Gin's eyes widened._

"_He blocked it? How can the boy even lift his sword! ?"_

"_He didn't," Gin told the blind man. "Barehanded. Nope- there's the sword-" and Gin watched and Tosen felt Kyoka Suigetsu cleave into two pieces._

"_He looks a bit different, too. Different coat, longer hair."_

"_Getsuga Tensho!"_

"_How did you know, boy?" Aizen hissed, roughly closing the wound with a battlefield healing Kido. It would re-open later, and would need to be healed properly._

_ Ichigo's reply was indistinct. Tosen turned to Gin._

"_What did he mean? You've never stabbed him."_

"_What are ya talkin' about?" Gin glanced at him in confusion.  
_

"_What the ryoka said!" Tosen snapped.  
_

"_Didn't hear him that well, but I never touched the kid, just the gatekeeper."/_

The observers could see Tosen look from him to Aizen, an expression of gradual suspicion growing on his face. Tosen moved to stand slightly behind the projected Gin, and the real one was now able to see that his guard was raised to counter an attack from the front, or placed to send an attack from behind.

They watched as the two men clashed, moving at speeds even most of the captains had trouble following and that Ishida, Orihime, and the vice-captains off to the side couldn't see at all. They watched as Aizen took a deep cut to the torso, and as he staggered, recovered, and blurred to meet Ichigo once more. And they watched as the two men paused, Ichigo clearly the loser in the short exchange of blows.

"There," Ichigo said from the side. "I hit him, and he decided to retreat. He made the switch then."

An image of Byakuya appeared, facing Aizen and telling Ichigo to stop fighting. Yoruichi and Soifon appeared in the same positions they had in the timeline that no longer existed. Suddenly, the image of Yoruichi screamed, for no reason anyone could see.

"Sorry," Ichigo said to Yoruichi, who was leaning against the wall next to him.

"What happened there?"

"I didn't know it would hurt you- I grabbed your hand with the one without a glove."

While they had been talking, Yoruichi had gone flying back with a spray of blood, and Soifon had futilely attempted to kill Aizen with the first of two blows.

"Why didn't that work?" Soifon asked the boy behind her.

"You tried to insert your reiatsu into my body. You made it a contest between our spirit pressures," Ichigo answered. "It didn't work with Aizen either, when you fought him."

"I want to see that fight, Kurosaki."

"Another time," Yamamoto ordered. "There are other matters of import today."

The image of Byakuya had gone into Bankai and promptly fallen, and Aizen was pursuing a retreating Ichigo. Kukaku and Jidanbo were fighting the remaining three gatekeepers in front of Gin's image, and he winced as one of the newcomers went down.

/_ "That had to hurt. I wonder if I should help…?"_

"_Don't move." Matsumoto grabbed his hand and placed her sword at his throat, while behind him Hisagi captured Tosen in a similar manner. They stood silently watching as, in front of them, Shuunsui crossed swords with Aizen and he and Ukitake went down. Aizen lightly landed next to the two men, looking down at the bodies, while Yamamoto ordered everyone to clear the field._

"_Ukitake-taicho… Kyoraku-taicho… _why,_ Gin?" Matsumoto asked, pain on her face. He remained silent as she flashed away with Hisagi. After a moment, he recovered himself enough to call out "Do you need a hand, Aizen-taicho?"_

_As Aizen replied in the negative, circles of flame surrounded them and segmented, isolating Gin, Tosen, and Ichigo, while Yamamoto and Aizen faced each other./_

The slight transparency of the projection actually helped, for now Gin was able to see through the flames as his past self had not been able to. Shuunsui and Ukitake bowed their heads as they saw the image that had provoked Yamamoto into releasing his bankai.

"So that's why…" Ichigo muttered.

Of the ghostly men, only Yamamoto and Aizen were left standing, and Aizen's movements and breathing were stilted and jerky.

"He is losing control under the spirit pressure," Unohana noted. "There are only two men to affect, but the hypnosis is no longer complete."

_/"In one thousand years, no shinigami has been born who was able to stand against the full force of my spiritual pressure. You were not an exception, boy. What have you done to yourself?" Yamamoto asked._

"_Nothing, yet," Aizen answered. They might have been chatting over tea, for all the emotion in their voices. "In time I shall destroy the barriers in myself that hold me back, and become a transcendental being." /_

"That might have been the only true statement the illusion said," Ukitake murmured.

"I'd pissed him off," Ichigo replied to the non-question.

In the image, the lava dragon attacked, and a dome appeared over Aizen and the men at his feet. The dome was cleaved, and Aizen passed through Yamamoto's bankai, crossed swords with the old man, and pushed him back just before a Hado 90: Black Coffin came down upon him.

/_ "What the …" Gin started to exclaim. _

_Tosen's voice came over the flame wall, breathless from casting a high-level kido under pressure. "I will not destroy a life's work for the words of a ghost."_

"_Was that you?"  
_

"_Aizen is holding back the Negacion."_

_The golden light descended upon the three of them, and the hypnosis ended./_

The projected exchange between Gin and Matsumoto was the same as in the timeline Ichigo had shown them, but the ending was not. Making connections from the events he had just seen to the information that the projected Ichigo, far below him, yelled at him, he chose to believe the young man's words and leave the Negacion's golden field.

Gin continued the projection until Aizen entered the garganta, then stopped the flow of his reiatsu, sweating slightly.

"Ichimaru-taicho. Is there anything in your past that you have not shown to Ukitake-taicho that you wish to be considered in this trial?"

"That's it, Soutaicho."

"Do you have any final words?"

The silver-haired man continued to smile at him. "Ain't sorry I tried."

"Noted."

Yamamoto ordered Gin and everyone who was not a captain out of the room until a verdict was reached. They were not waiting long before being summoned back in.

"Ichimaru Gin, Acting Captain of the Third Division. You joined the service of the traitor Aizen Sosuke intending to discover his secrets, betray, and kill him. You have not yet harmed any of your colleagues, and would, to the best of our knowledge of the future, only have harmed them if directly ordered to do so. Of the charge of treason, I find you not guilty." Yamamoto's eyes opened slightly.

"However, you joined the Gotei 13 solely for the purpose of killing the traitor. You were prepared to betray your comrades and desert your command to do so. A captain cannot place revenge over duty. Your loyalty to the Seireitei is suspect and must be confirmed. You will resume your position, but your command decisions will be reviewed in a yearly audit for the next ten years. In addition, for the next year you will be on half pay."

"That doesn't seem like very much," Ishida remarked to Yoruichi quietly.

"It's a slap on the wrist, and everyone in the Seireitei will know it. If they let him get off completely, the Central 46 would make a fuss about it when they're reformed."

"Ichimaru-taicho, take your sword and haori, and resume your place with your fellow captains."

Sakisabe Chojiro came forward with Shinsou and the haori of the third division captain. Gin placed his sword on his hip, letting his hand linger on it for the first time in five days, before donning the haori. Without a word, he took his place at the empty spot at the end of one line. It happened to be next to Hitsugaya, who looked away with a sniff as Gin smiled down at him. The final decision had been Yamamoto's, but Hitsugaya's voice had been the loudest in urging against clemency.

"This meeting will reconvene at sunset. Kurosaki Ichigo, expect to complete the memory you halted at that time."

"Sure."

Yamamoto idly wondered how long it would take to instill something resembling proper military courtesy into the boy. He realized that it would probably take more time than he had, and let go of the idea with regret.

"Dismissed!"

The meeting broke up, and the attendees filed out of the First Division headquarters. Upon seeing Gin step onto the street wearing a white haori, Matsumoto sighed in relief before joining her own captain, and a cheer rose from the throats of the loitering members of the Third Division. Morale in the Third had been unusually high in the past few days, ever since the retelling of what Ichigo had shouted to Gin had spread through the divisions. At a time when the rest of the forces were reeling from the betrayal of two popular leaders, the Third was reveling in the fact that _their_ captain, whom few outside of the division cared for, had never been fooled and had been singlehandedly working to kill the traitors.

"So," Yoruichi said, while she and Soifon paused outside of the division gates "are you healed?"

"Yeah, Unohana cleared me this morning-" and, for the first time, Ichigo _felt_ the sword coming from behind him with his reiatsu senses.

Of course, the fact that he'd somehow managed to ignore Kenpachi Zarakai's monstrous reiatsu made the accomplishment less significant.

"Kenpachi! I don't have time for this!" he yelled as he shunpoed to the left.

"Make time, Ichigo!" Kenpachi had a wide grin on his face, and his lone eye was beginning to glow. "You've gotten stronger! I want to fight you without holding back!"

"I'm not fighting you!"

'**Let me fight him**!' the hollow's voice echoed in his mind. Ichigo's eyes widened and he grabbed his face, as he had done in the fight with Yammy, months ago and months from now.

No. _No. _ Not this, not again- if it came to it, he would reject the hollow, sacrifice all of the power they could have together, defeat him again and drive him down to the depths of his soul-

'**Not like that, idiot**!'

Oh.

He reached, and pulled, and two spirits appeared at his side. The hollow instantly moved in front of Ichigo, catching Kenpachi's overhand strike on his own white cleaver.

"What the hell?"

"The thing you've gotta understand about King is," the hollow said conversationally, grinning up at the captain of the Eleventh before heaving up and forcing the unnamed sword back, "he's got no fighting instinct. You never had a rematch. He's got some chickenshit problem about fights to the death between allies for no reason."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Ichigo deadpanned from behind him. "And you lost our fight."

"And if you'd had a rematch," the hollow continued, ignoring him, "you'd have won. He's never fought with all his power unless he's fighting for something. It's fuckin' hard to even get him to admit he enjoys it." The grin grew wider. "I don't have that problem."

"You're the love of fighting," Kenpachi said, eye narrowed consideringly. Yoruichi and Soifon stiffened, fearing that Ichigo would make the connection to the conversation he'd had after waking up, but he didn't seem to have caught the reference.

"Something like that. And now he's letting me out to play. What that means is," and without warning he darted forward, sword raised and aimed for Kenpachi's face. In a movement almost too fast to follow, Kenpachi twisted and turned, his own sword forcing the white cleaver up and away from his eyes to leave a light, glancing scratch across his forehead while the hollow passed him by.

The eyepatch fluttered to the ground.

"-you fight with your full strength, or you die." The hollow turned, his grin even more psychotic than usual, yellow eyes practically glowing. Around them, the unseated shinigami who had gathered to watch the confrontation, and Ishida and Orihime, fell to their knees under the weight of Kenpachi's full reiatsu. "And I'd better see two hands on that sword."

"Heh." Kenpachi looked down at the eyepatch. "I like you, hollow." There was an eerie similarity in the smiles the two sent to each other. Their eyes met, and in unspoken agreement their swords came up and forward, the hollow's in an almost careless backhand, Zarakai's in a two-handed overhand strike.

The overhand strike was caught by a cleaver identical to the one Ichigo carried, and the hollow's sword went harmlessly through Zangetsu-no-ossan's black-clad chest.

"What are you _doing?_ !" the hollow yelled at him.

"If you wish to do this more than once, we cannot cause collateral damage," the older man stated. "Move to the Execution Hill."

The hollow glared at him. "We've got a time limit, you know."

"Then I suggest you hurry."

The hollow snorted and left in a boom of sonido.

"He will wait for you." Zangetsu-no-ossan stepped back, lowering his cleaver. Next to Ichigo, Ikkaku flashed onto the scene carrying Yachiru on his back, having felt his captain's spirit pressure from halfway across the Seireitei.

"What're you, the babysitter?" the white-clad man in front of him grunted, annoyed at the delay.

"At times, it seems like it."

"Hey!" Ichigo said. He wasn't _that_ bad.

"But know this, Kenpachi Zarakai," the sword continued, ignoring Ichigo. His tone was cold and grim, and his disgust for the captain in front of him was evident to all of the observers. "When we cross blades with you, we hear your sword screaming in pain. I will allow him to play, but if he falls, you will face _me_."

Kenpachi scratched his head a bit sheepishly. "I'm gonna work on that."

"If you did, then you failed." With those words, the man in black followed his white counterpart.

"Failed, huh?" Kenpachi mused. He snorted. "The hell with _that_. Hey, Ichigo, what happens if they get hurt?"

Ichigo shrugged and looked at Yoruichi.

"The manifestation can take wounds," she told them both, "but it's to the body made from his power, not to their actual spirits. Ichigo will lose power faster if you hurt them, so the manifestation will end sooner, but they'll be fine when they get back to his soul."

Kenpachi's eyes glowed even brighter upon hearing that. Without a word he turned towards the Sokyoku Hill looming in the distance, and began running. With a shriek of laughter, Yachiru gave a massive hop and landed directly onto his shoulder. Behind them, Ikkaku shook his head.

"That was either the smartest or the stupidest thing you've ever done, kid, but at least it won't be boring." He looked at Ichigo. "When did you learn to do that?"

"Renji told me how a couple of days ago," he answered absently, following Kenpachi's reiatsu as it veered away from where he was supposed to be heading. All of the shinigami present looked at him incredulously.

"What?" Ichigo asked, as he saw their expressions.

"How long will it be before the manifestation ends?" Soifon asked.

"Yesterday it was about half an hour. I'll try to hold it longer this time." He looked at Yoruichi. "So, what are we doing first?"

"… the Academy. The Nightingale Room."

"Never been there; you'll have to lead the way. See you later, Ikkaku." Yoruichi and Soifon flash-stepped away at a slower pace than they were capable of, allowing the less-skilled Ichigo to keep up.

"Half an hour, after two days…" Ikkaku sighed, picked up the eyepatch, and followed his superior officers, knowing that they would get lost without him. Behind him, only Ishida and Orihime remained.

"…how do we get back to the Fourth division from here, Ishida-kun?"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo stood facing the current and former commanders of the Onmitsukido, his sword unwrapped and on the floor. They were on the edge of a large single-room building on the Shino Academy grounds. A group of black-clad Academy fifth-years had been practicing when they arrived, but quickly scattered upon seeing Soifon's white haori.

"Do you know what the Onmitsukido are, Kurosaki?" Soifon was slightly to the front, and Yoruichi seemed content to allow her to take the initiative. She continued before he had a chance to answer, her voice cold and calm.

"The Onmitsukido are responsible for everything the main army does not wish to sully their lily-white hands with. We are the messengers, the scouts, the prison guards. We are the spies, the saboteurs, and the assassins. In war or rebellion, we are the ones reporting on enemy movements, poisoning their wells, and killing their leaders in the dark. You must be willing to do anything and sacrifice anything to accomplish your goal. Only the assignment matters. If you see an ally losing a fight, that's your chance. Don't step between them. Take the enemy down from behind. And if the enemy is so strong that you can't do that, then just watch your ally be killed. That is what it means to be Onmitsukido.

"You cannot do that. You will never be one of us. Fortunately, you don't have to be." She turned and walked onto the delineated main floor of the room.

"We are preparing you for a single mission, Kurosaki, and most of our conventional training will be utterly useless. Shino Academy students study for seven years before the most promising come to us. When they do, we train them further. They learn wilderness survival, disguise, poisons, lockpicking, explosive and concealing kido, meteorology, and underwater movement in addition to the more conventional combat training and shunpo. You do not need most of that."

"What'll we be doing, then?"

"We'll be training you in stealth and movement in a desert and urban environment," Yoruichi answered, circling to his back. "You and Gin will be giving us every bit of information you have on the layout and defenses in Las Noches. We'll be suggesting ways to get in undetected and to find and avoid the cameras and guards. More importantly, we'll be training you in how to figure all that out by yourself; no plan survives an encounter with the enemy."

"We will be training you to fight silently, to quietly remove anyone you cannot avoid without alerting any of their compatriots," Soifon continued. "When we are finished, your shunpo will make no sound, your feet will leave no tracks, and your strikes will give no warning. To everything but direct sight, you will be the ghost Tosen Kaname named you."

"But first," Yoruichi said, placing a hand on his back, "we'll be teaching you how to move." She pushed him onto the floor, and the boards shifted and squeaked under his weight.

"You're walking on a nightingale floor. The boards are made so that the nails rub against other metal parts under them. It's an effective defense against unannounced entry unless the assassin is powerful enough to walk on air."

Yoruichi followed him, walking as lightly as a cat. "Step carefully. You can use the air particles to distribute the force when you bring your feet down, but make sure that your full weight is on the floor at the end. When you solidify the air under your feet, you're still making a noise when you walk on it. We're using this room so you know when you're doing it right. When you've got that down, we'll work on moving in sand until you don't leave any footprints. _Then_ you'll practice until you can do it during shunpo."

"What are you doing differently?" Ichigo asked, trying to step with the ball of one foot on the floor and hearing it creak underneath him. The boards under his feet were the only ones making any sound.

"You can already walk on air, Kurosaki. Instead of solidifying the rieryoku under your feet into a solid board, only solidify it partway. Picture a syrup under your feet, and let it slow and soften your movements." Soifon jumped high into the air, and then came down slowly, landing gently directly in front of him without a sound.

Ichigo did the same thing, and landed with a much softer noise than he had been making.

"Better, Ichigo," Yoruichi said. "When you try that, make the air less solid each time, until you can distribute the force completely on your own. Land on the balls of your feet."

Suddenly, he felt the hollow and Zangetsu-no-ossan return to his soul, and distant swearing filled his mind.

"How long was it since I manifested them?"

"Thirty-eight minutes," Soifon answered.

He pulled, and the hollow appeared, still swearing.

"How'd it go?"

"The bastard didn't get to the Hill until ten minutes ago! That was barely even a warm-up!"

"I'm sure Kenpachi-taicho will demand a rematch soon enough, hollow," Soifon said disdainfully. "Kurosaki, if we can continue?"

Ichigo nodded, and jumped into the air as the hollow disappeared.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

That evening, Ichigo began the projection just before he forcibly moved the fight to an area on the outskirts of Karakura.

/ "_Aizen. Let's do this elsewhere. I don't want to fight here."_

_"A meaningless suggestion. Those are words only someone who has the power to give me a challenge has the right to say. There's no need to worry. There will be no need to destroy Karakura Town. You will..._"

_He was interrupted by Ichigo's hand in his face, pushing him to open land._/

The captains and Ichgo's friends watched as a mountain was obliterated in the first clash, as Aizen gloated about his power and the opportunity to test it out, and as Ichigo caught his final strike with his bare hand.

"How'd that feel, kid?" Shunsui asked, remembering Ichigo's face when Aizen had done the same thing to him in the projection that morning.

Ichigo gave him a lazy smirk. "Pretty good."

In the projection, Aizen was clearly losing control as he shouted out the incantation for a Hado 90: Black Coffin. He gaped in disbelief as Ichigo obliterated the descending spell with a single swing of his sword.

/_"Looks like you didn't notice. I'm stronger than you right now. The one who blew away that mountain wasn't your sword. It was mine."_/

The image slashed at the winged man, and Aizen retreated with a cut on his torso.

/_ "Should I do the questioning this time? Just now, why did you distance yourself from me?"_

"_I see. Are you happy that you stopped my sword? Are you happy that you shattered my kido? Are you happy that you injured my body? ABANDON YOUR ARROGANCE, HUMAN!"_/

With that, Aizen's body split and twisted once more, forming into a monstrosity that not even the experienced hollow slayers in the room had ever imagined. The fight continued, and Ichigo's arm was wounded as he took Aizen's most powerful energy blast full on, and as Aizen grabbed him by the throat and surrounded him by a glowing ring of power.

/"_You are finished, Kurosaki Ichigo!" _

"_Finished?"_

_He raised his head slightly, allowing Aizen to see his amber eyes, calm and confident despite his precarious position._

"_Is that all you've got?" _/

And with a single swing of his sword, the entrapping circle of light was obliterated, and the image was free. A final exchange of words, a final strike that only a few of the captains were able to see occur, and the surroundings went dark before Ichigo cut off the projection.

"Is that when you came back in time, Kurosaki?" Yamamoto asked, eyes slightly open and watching the young man carefully.

"Yeah." He took a breath, raised the projector, and began.

/ _It was dark until he heard a panicked scream. _

"_ICHIGO!"_

_He coughed once, and opened his eyes, and began to struggle to his knees as he adjusted to their changed positions._

"_I told you once, Kurosaki," Aizen chided, "your backbone is the only thing holding you together. It is structurally impossible for you to move. If it makes you feel better, however, you may kneel while I kill you." _

_He strode over, and swung his sword, and it was caught once again with Ichigo's bare hand as their eyes met. With a single swing, Kyoka Suigetsu was cleaved into two pieces, and the last quarter of the blade stayed in Ichigo's hand._

"_Getsuga Tensho". _

"_How did you know, boy?" _ _Aizen asked after roughly sealing the cut he had not been fast enough to avoid receiving._

"_I caught up with you just before Gin stabbed you. You couldn't sense me, and Dad's reiatsu was weak enough that you didn't notice him either. I heard your entire conversation. I know your sword's weakness. I won't lose to you!" _

"_Look at yourself, Kurosaki Ichigo. You can barely stand," Aizen said, a slight smile on his face, "and you believe you are capable of defeating me?_ Learn your place, ryoka boy!"

_Ichigo fought one-handed while the hand with the sword fragment was clutched to his stomach to try to prevent anything important from falling out. The men had not done anything more than scratch each other until Aizen failed to avoid an upwards slash, and took a deep cut to the chest opposite to the first, barely-closed wound. After one final strike he disengaged from Ichigo, flash-stepping back and breathing heavily._

"_This was a cute trick, but all you did was buy yourself a few minutes, Aizen. You don't even have the Hogyoku now." He readied his sword._

_Aizen just smiled. "Tell me, Kurosaki, do you remember what happens next?"_

"_Hold." The one quiet word was all the announcement its owner needed, and Kuchiki Byakuya appeared between the two combatants, facing Ichigo._

"_Stand down, Kurosaki Ichigo. This is not your fight," the nobleman said calmly.  
_

"_Nii-sama!" _

"_Like hell it isn't! Move, Byakuya!" Ichigo shouted.  
_

"_A bit slow, aren't you, Kurosaki?" Aizen asked, the calm smile on his face unwavering.  
_

"_We can," Yoruichi appeared with the tip of her dagger inside of the gaping wound in Ichigo's stomach. "Don't move…"_

"…_or you'll lose your head," Soi Fon finished, her sword at his throat. _

_Sickened understanding flashed across Ichigo's face._

"_You bastard…"_

"_Aizen! What is going on! ?" Tosen yelled out from his place slightly behind Gin._

_Ichigo used the hand holding the piece of Kyoka Suigetsu to move Yoruichi's hand away from his wound. As he touched her hand, however, she gave a strangled scream, and beneath his fingers the flesh on her hand charred away. He dropped it instantly and stared in shock at his own hand, then glanced at the one holding his sword- the one covered in a black glove. His eyes hardened in resolve.  
_

"_Sorry 'bout this." _

_He opened his fingers, and for the first time since he had become whole, his sword left his hand. With a single tap to the temple that was far too fast for any other being to see, Yoruichi was sent flying, unconscious._

"_Yoruichi-sama!" Soi Fon screamed. She aimed and struck at Ichigo's pulse._

"_Nigeki Kessatsu!" No butterfly formed, and with the same carefully controlled blow to the head as Ichigo had used on Yoruichi, she was sent flying into unconsciousness._

"_Bankai, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi." Byakuya's calm voice was belied by the urgent motions of his hands as he sent the deadly stream of flower petals towards Ichigo. Before they reached him, Ichigo flash-stepped to his side and knocked him out with the same strike he had used with the other two. His sword was still hanging from the chain wrapped around his wrist and arm, and it moved so that it never tangled in his legs or otherwise interfered with his movements._

_While he fought, Aizen had been giving Tosen a brief explanation of their status as time travelers as the blind man tried in vain to sense any part of the fight besides the effect of Ichigo's blows on their former colleagues. Kaiwan, Danzomaru, and Higonudo arrived and were engaged by Kukaku and Jidanbo, while Ichigo began flash-stepping towards Aizen. He retreated, and Ichigo was intercepted by Shunsui and Ukitake._

"_Irooni: white!" Kyoraku called out grimly, coming in on the ground. Above him, Ukitake began chanting._

"_Sprinkled on the bones of the beast! Sharp tower, red crystal, steel ring. Move and become the wind, stop and become the calm. The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle!" A massive wave of yellow energy came from Jushiro's hand and rocketed towards Ichigo, who simply raised his arm to protect his face._ _Shunsui darted in, and as soon as he was close enough Ichigo tapped him on his brown hat with the same strike that had already felled three captain-class shinigami._

_The hit had no effect._

_Eyes wide, Ichigo moved his gloved hand reflexively to block the incoming blow, and as he did the daito dangling from his wrist, the sword that was now an extension of himself, jumped into his hand to meet the tachi of Katen Kyokotsu. He did not attack again, just blocked the first three strikes, until the second strike from the wakizashi was deflected and hit the black sleeve covering his left arm, also to no avail._

_Comprehension flashed across Ichigo's face as he glanced up at Ukitake. Without wasting any more time, he dropped his sword again and pushed the captain of the Eighth away with a casual open-handed blow onto the white haori, and as he flew back Ichigo jumped up and sent Ukitake plummeting down to earth. As Ichigo watched him fall onto his friend, he froze, and fell next to the two, horror on his face._/

Ichigo paused the projection. "What happened there? I thought I couldn't hurt you," he said to Shunsui.

"Didn't you ever play Irooni as a kid, Ichigo-san? You can only hit the white parts," Shunsui answered calmly, doing his best to hide his surprise that he had not even noticed the first blow of their short engagement.

"What? Doesn't your shikai power have something to do with shadows? I figured you were the distraction, and that he was supposed to try to take me out with kido or something," he said, gesturing to Ukitake.

"No. Katen Kyokotsu makes children's games real, and I thought you were wearing a white haori. It looks like the only white you were wearing was the trimming on your coat." Shunsui had looked for that as soon as Ichigo had begun the projection. The damage to the coat from the fight in the future had not come through time, and the white edges of the coat's collar and the split in front were still intact.

He decided not to explain the other half of the game- that the damage that could be done was proportional to the amount of the correct color on the attacker. Thinking that he could not hurt Shunsui, Ichigo had not bothered to control his strength. The blow that had taken one of the strongest captains in Soul Society down had been a very minor fraction of the power that had cleaved apart a mountain. It would be kinder not to let the boy know how close he had come to accidentally killing Shunsui.

Ichigo pushed his reiatsu back into the stone, and let the memory of Yamamoto come to the forefront of his mind.

/_ "Withdraw! Everyone withdraw from the hill!" the Soutaicho commanded. He had released his sword during Shunsui's attack, and the assistant captains close to him, including his own, had already moved to avoid being suffocated by his massive reiatsu. As Ichigo shook off his shock, they all flashed away, taking Rukia, Renji, and Komamura with them. Only Yamamoto, Aizen, Gin, Tosen, and Ichigo were left standing on Sokyoku Hill. Yoruichi, Soi Fon, and Byakuya all lay sprawled in various positions across the plateau, and Ukitake was crumpled on top of Kyoraku at Ichigo's feet. Around the captain commander, flames smoldered, the heat scorching the earth and erasing the clouds from the sky. Ichigo braced himself, his sword once more in his hand, preparing to go through Yamamoto to finally reach Aizen._

"_If you move, Kurosaki, the illusion will not follow you," Aizen said calmly. "Can you take him out in one blow without killing him?" Ichigo looked at the men at his feet, then at Yamamoto, clearly judging his chances. If he did not knock Yamamoto out on the first strike, he would send his flames at the two men lying defenseless at Ichigo's feet, where Yamamoto believed Aizen to be._

_Ichigo knew exactly how durable the old man was._

_He straightened and planted himself between them and Yamamoto._

"_Do you need a hand, Aizen-taicho?" Gin Ichimaru, now free again, called out cheerfully. _

_Ichigo turned his head, having forgotten the two men were there._

"_Gin!" he shouted, while circles of flame sprang up around the men._

"_He cannot hear you, Kurosaki. He has outlived his usefulness, and I will not give him a second chance."_

"_Tosen!"_

"_You can say nothing I wish to hear, ryoka," the blind man responded.  
_

"_Under control, is it now? Arrogant puppy! Do not think I will be defeated as easily as my foolish students!"_ _Yamamoto growled. Ichigo glanced at him before turning back in the direction of the flame-wall surrounding the former captain of the Ninth Divison._

"_You died, Tosen! You were dead before I even got to the battlefield. He's completely insane, and he doesn't give a damn about anyone else. It's not too late!"_

"_Did I die a shinigami?" Tosen's question was directed, not to Ichigo, but to Aizen._

"_You accepted Hollowification, and died in your ressureccion form. In that form, you could see. You were fighting Komamura, and Hisagi attacked you from behind," Aizen replied. "Of course, it will go better this time around."_

"_Then I am content. I have always known that the path of least bloodshed has it's own dangers."_

"_Least bloodshed! ? He wants to destroy Karakura! He wants to kill thousands of innocent people!" Ichigo snapped.  
_

"_The ends will justify the means, human," Tosen answered.  
_

"_You self-rightous-" Ichigo began, incensed, before an unexpected phrase interrupted him.  
_

"_Ban-kai. __Yōyū Uchigami.__"_

"_What. The hell." Ichigo turned to look at Yamamoto, a flat expression on his face, while the ground cracked open between them._ "_He didn't even do that for you."_

"_Aizen… what have you done?" Tosen gasped, as he grabbed his throat and sank to the ground._

_Ichigo looked past Yamamoto's dragon to the smallest flame circle, where Aizen was no longer visible._

"_Why are you kneeling, Aizen?" Ichigo was utterly unaffected by the spirit pressure pressing the three traitorous captains to the ground. _

"_Is he standing? How?" Tosen choked out, regretting his lack of sight more than at any time in his life.  
_

"_In one thousand years, no shinigami has been born who was able to stand against the full force of my spiritual pressure. You were not an exception, boy. What have you done to yourself?" Yamamoto asked._

"_Ah. Still stronger than you, then."_

"_An osprey cannot be affected by the water pressure, until it chooses to go hunting," Aizen answered Tosen. His voice was cold when he added, "I will destroy the barriers in myself that hold me back, and surpass you, ryoka boy."_

"_Don't be so cocky, infant," Yamamoto said.  
_

"_What he said. It takes a level of self-acceptance you won't ever reach."_

_The Soutaicho's bankai fired a stream of lava at Ichigo, and in response, he flared his reiatsu, instinctively lowering it to a level that allowed for interference from the world around him and sending it forward, away from the men he was protecting._

_As the lava encountered his spirit pressure, most of it simply ceased to exist. Some, though, was repelled when it was far enough away to solidify, and formed a wall of obsidian as it cooled in an instant on the surface of the aura. It formed a dome over the three men that was lit only by the glowing blue light coming off of Ichigo, with all of the colors in the small space washed out by the color of his aura. Behind him, Ukitake started gasping and choking, as the reiatsu that Ichigo couldn't stop from leaking behind him pressed down on him. As the hiss of lava on the outside stopped, Ichigo turned to glance behind him._

"…_Kaien? What…"_

"_No. Sorry, Ukitake-san."_

_Ichigo let his spirit pressure return to the level it was supposed to be upon, and cleaved the dome open with one swing. He had no new injuries, but the coat had grown tattered as the injury and the expenditure of reiatsu began to take its toll._

_Off to his side, Tosen was chanting a familiar kido._

"_I'll just break it again, you know. It won't work."_

"_It is not aimed at you, Kurosaki," Aizen replied.  
_

_Ichigo's eyes widened, and he flashed forward, passing through the dragon and leaving it in two pieces behind him. He met Yamamoto's blade with a flash of sparks, and twisted their blades up and out from between their bodies. The hand holding the shattered piece of Kyoka Suigetsu left his stomach for the first time since he had burned Yoruichi, and he pushed Yamamoto out of the range of the kido as the coffin descended._/

Ichigo let the projection end, gripping his stomach lightly to make sure it was still intact. That had sucked.

There was silence, as the leaders of Soul Society recovered from seeing their strongest fighters defeated barehanded, as easily as Ichigo had defeated three of the weakest vice-captains earlier on the same day. Komamura was the first to break it.

"Is it true, Kurosaki, that we were the ones to kill him?"

"Sorry, Komamura-san. I don't know. Aizen might have been lying."

"We will meet tomorrow at this same time," Yamamoto ordered, cutting off further questions. There would be time for them later, but it was better that the upcoming discussion be held in private. "You are dismissed. Kurosaki, stay behind."

Ichigo shrugged and stayed in the center of the room, while the rest of the occupants filed out.

"What's this about?" Ichigo asked.

He had been able to stand. After a thousand years…

"What this is about, Kurosaki Ichigo, is your actions on Sokyoku Hill," the old man said, eyes shut.

"What do you mean?"

"There is no need to put a single life and the whole of the world on a scale," Yamamoto said, deliberately quoting his future self. From the narrowed eyes, he saw that the words had called up the memory he had wanted it to.

"I wasn't gonna let them die."

"Sometimes sacrifices must be made. Aizen Sosuke now threatens three worlds, and would not if you had made a different choice five days ago. What should you have done, Kurosaki Ichigo?" The answer, the only solution, had clearly not even occurred to him.

"I couldn't have knocked you out, and you'd have attacked his illusion anyway. They'd have died."

"So naïve," the Soutaicho growled, his eyes opening fractionally. "You should have killed me, boy."

"_What?_"

"One life will never be more important than the billions of souls that reside in these dimensions, Kurosaki." Yamamoto needed to drive that idea home. There was more than one way to make a point. "I was the only thing standing between you and the death of Aizen Sosuke, and I would not have seen you coming. You should not have even hesitated."

"Look, I'm not gonna apologize for not killing you!"

"To give one's life to destroy evil is the way of the Gotei 13. I am willing to die to do so."

"_You can't do that_. You can't just look at the numbers and decide who it's worth to try to save. You save everyone you can!" Ichigo snapped back.

"Only children cannot make sacrifices, Kurosaki. Aizen exploited that five days ago. He knew exactly what your reactions would be when you fought me, and planned accordingly."

"You're a little too willing to make sacrifices, Jii-san," Ichigo told him, remembering a trap that would have consumed more than half of his senior officers in addition to the intended target. "It doesn't always work."

"When the only other option is to fail your mission, make the call, infant."

"That's not gonna come up too often."

"If you are fortunate, it will not. I have never been so fortunate." On that note, Yamamoto left the meeting room. Ichigo shook his head and left the first division compound. He'd do it again.

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Author's Note:

Another monster of a chapter; it ballooned to at least a third longer than I'd expected, and I still cut stuff out because I wanted to post the day I said I would. The next update will be in two weeks; next week is finals at my school, and although I hope to have time to write, I'm not going to commit to having a chapter finished.

Kenpachi's reaction to Aizen's first transformation mirrored my own, except that I was also shrieking 'He's a butterfly!'.

Regarding Gin's trial: I know I let him off really lightly. In the fight above Karakura, he fought with Shinji and horribly wounded Hiyori. However, I'm pretty sure Ichigo doesn't know that. A bunch of people were badly injured when Ichigo got there, and he never got the backstory. At this point in the timeline, Gin hasn't done anything but be creepy, fight Hitsugaya when he attacked Gin, break Kira out of prison, and be around Aizen when Aizen was attacking the other captains. In the future, the only things Ichigo saw him doing were attack Rukia _at Aizen's direct order_, stand around watching when Aizen kicked ass at the battle above Karakura, sit around chatting instead of trying to kill Ichigo in that same battle, and try to kill Aizen. I believed that his _observed_ crimes were small enough (when compared to his overall intention) and that they needed a warm body with a Bankai enough that a slap on the wrist is realistic. If you disagree, feel free to let me know.


	7. Chapter 6 Family Bonds

When I said the chapter would be up two weeks from Saturday, I totally did not check the date. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! (Because, it's late here. I need sleep.)

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

**Responses to anonymous reviewers: Gree**- My first thought upon reading the manga was that it was implying that Matsumoto had been raped and that Gin wanted revenge. Since that isn't ever explicitly stated, I tried to leave it as open to interpretation as the comic did. If you've got a different interpretation, feel free to take the hand on the pelvis as a completely random gesture. I have never seen that movie, although since I've read the Wiki page about nightingale floors I know why you asked the question. I read about them in a fantasy book called 'Across the Nightingale Floor' and decided to use the idea; I have no idea how similar my scene is to the one in Ninja Assassin. **Carrier**- it's a good idea, but I'm afraid that I won't be incorporating the Bount arc characters in the fic for the simple reason that I haven't seen all of the episodes in the arc and can't be sure of the characterizations. I'm relying on the Bleach wiki for info on that arc more than for any other. **Ebonjade:** The scene that I didn't write last chapter is the first scene in this chapter. Enjoy.

**04/09/11 edit:** I greatly expanded the battle with Aizen above the fake Karakura town. It increased the chapter length by a third. Happy reading!

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"Hey. Big guy."

Chad looked from his book to see Karin at the door of the room he and Isshin shared, holding her twin sister's wrist firmly in one hand. Yuzu looked like she would rather be anywhere else. Chad grunted slightly in acknowledgment and gestured for them to enter. Karin dragged Yuzu into the room and pushed her onto their father's bed.

"We need your help. She'll never say anything, but this place creeps her out." Karin's gesture encompassed the entire warehouse surrounding them. "We need to know what you did."

"Did?" Chad sat up and closed his book, looking more carefully at ichigo's sisters.

"When you changed your arm and killed the Hollow last month. You could hear it, and see a shimmer, and then you were able to see it. Yuzu wants to do that too." Beside Karin, Yuzu nodded slightly despite her reluctance to bother her brother's friend.

Chad stared at them both. "…you can't see them? You offered them tea."

_/ Chad had come with Yoruichi, Shunsui, Ukitake, Soi Fon, and Nanao to the Kurosaki clinic five days ago. None of the shinigami had used a gigai, and so when they entered the clinic where Isshin was ushering out a patient with an excuse of a sudden family emergency, the young giant was the only person the departing child and her parents could see. Ichigo's sisters were both on summer break and accustomed to spending part of the day helping in the clinic. They watched silently as Isshin turned, apprehension on his face, to the visitors whose reiatsu he had sensed from blocks away._

"_My son?" Isshin could think of few reasons for Yoruichi to tell the Gotei 13 where he was, and none of them were good._

"_He's alive," Yoruichi hastened to reassure him. "He's badly injured, but Unohana'll fix him up." _

_Isshin closed his eyes in relief, then opened them again. "Jushiro, Kyoraku. I assume from the company you keep that you come in peace. It is… good to see you again."_

"_Hey, who are they, and what's wrong with Ichi-nii?" Karin growled, hearing only that her brother was hurt._

"_Daddy… can you see them?" Yuzu directed her gaze at the area behind Chad, while Karin looked from the visitors to her father._

"_What do you mean?" Karin asked her sister._

"_They're ghosts, Karin." Yuzu came up to stand next to her father. "Daddy, nii-san's upstairs. Why are they saying-"_

"_YOU CAN SEE GHOSTS? !"_

"_Karin." Isshin's voice was calm and flat, and his face when he glanced over his shoulder was sterner than she had ever seen it. "Not now. I promise, I will tell you everything. But not now."_

_She hesitated, then nodded and joined her sister at his side. "You'd better, Goat-face."_

_He placed a hand on her shoulder and looked back at Yoruichi. "What happened?"_

"_This would probably be better explained sitting down. Can we go inside?"_

_Isshin nodded, and led the way to the living room. Soifon, Ukitake, and Nanao stood against the wall, though Nanao was unobtrusively hovering over the couch where Yoruichi and Shunsui sat. He had had broken ribs and multiple internal injuries, and the trip through the Senkaimon gate had not done his barely-healed wounds any good._

"_May I offer anyone tea?" Yuzu asked, doing her best to play the good hostess despite the odd circumstances. Chad shook his head._

"_We don't have the time. Brief him so we can get moving," Soifon said coldly._

"_Soi-fon. As gracious as ever, I see." Isshin inclined his head in a brief, bitter acknowledgment._

"_I'm sorry, but we are here on a rather urgent assignment," Ukitake said, considerably more gently. "Thank you for the offer, miss…?" _

"_Kurosaki Yuzu," she answered, bowing in the direction of the kind voice. "This is my sister, Karin." _

_The remaining shinigami introduced themselves in turn, before the conversation turned to what little they knew about Ichigo's situation and the threat Aizen had made to Ichigo's loved ones. The girls stayed silent, very confused but trusting that their father would make good on his promise to explain what was going on later. They did manage to grasp the essentials- that the person upstairs was not Ichigo, and that their brother had fought in a war, traveled back through time with the man he had been fighting, and was in the hospital of the land that he had invaded. Their father was able to understand the subtleties of the story that they missed._

"_How many captains did he fight to get to Aizen?"_

"_He was fighting Aizen when we got there," Yoruichi answered from her place in the chair across from their couch, "and went through the four of us and Kuchiki Byakuya before he hit Yamamoto."_

_A gleeful gleam entered Isshin's eyes despite the seriousness of the situation. "All of you?"_

"_The point is," Soi Fon snapped, still smarting slightly over being taken down so easily, "you are now targets. Yoruichi-sama says that there is a safe-house prepared. Pack immediately, and expect that you will not be returning in the near future."_

_Isshin nodded and gestured to the girls. "Give us half an hour." As he moved to the door, he paused, and looked back at Chad._

"_He knew I was a shinigami?"_

_Chad nodded._

_Isshin sighed. "…I'm glad I told him."/_

"It was the polite thing to do," Yuzu answered Chad. "I know where they are. I've always been able to hear ghosts, and see them a little. But here, no-one has bodies except for us and Daddy. I want to be able to see them like you do."

"Sorry. I could only see them after that hollow attack. I don't know why I changed." He thought back to his training with Orihime. "Inoue-san said that she and Tatsuki could see them after she went to the TV-show screening. She said your brother was doing something that used a lot of power. That's when she started to be able to see them clearly."

"Can you do what he did?"

Chad looked down at his strong right arm, curling it into a fist. As per his new agreement with the shinigami, Urahara received all of the recordings from Mayuri's projector, with the most relevant parts identified by the vice-captains monitoring the station. Chad was not happy about the monitoring, but without a way to communicate independently with the Seireitei there was nothing he could do. The warehouse had gone down into lockdown as soon as they had arrived; they were equipped for a siege, and the only contact with the outside world was through the Vizards and Urahara, all of whom desired the spying to continue.

Chad had seen Ichigo's memories of himself and Ishida fighting, and knew that he had become more powerful in the future that no longer existed. Ichigo was planning on changing what had happened, on removing whatever reasons Chad had had to become stronger.

He raised his hand to grab the coin around his neck as Ichigo had done less than a week ago. He would keep the promise they had made together, and protect what Ichigo needed protected, while Ichigo worked to protect them all. As he was now, he was not powerful enough.

"I can try."

A short time later, he came to where Shinji, Love, and Kensei were sitting in the common room.

"I beg of you," and the young giant fell to his knees, "please, take me as your student."

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Ichigo moved sideways to avoid the punch and aimed a palm-strike at Yoruichi's sternum, trying to take her out as simply as he had once defeated Kotetsu Isane. She twisted, grabbed his wrist, and used his momentum to send him flying head-over-heels. The orange-haired boy controlled the tumble by placing one hand on the floor and springing off of it in a move that would make Olympic gymnasts weep with envy.

As he landed on his feet, Soifon moved in from the side with a flying round-kick to the head. He blocked it with one hand and punched with the other, using his far greater reach to his advantage, as she twisted while still mid-jump and pushed off of thin air to avoid his fist. Ichigo's eyes widened as he _felt _Yoruichi's incoming fist from behind, in one of the flashes of his reiatsu sense that he was now having even when not deliberately trying to see without sight. He ducked and kicked, but the momentary distraction had allowed Soi Fon to get close again, and the bout ended with a knife-hand strike that she pulled enough to rest gently against his pulse.

For the entire fight, the only noise had been the sounds of strikes being blocked; the nightingale floor underneath them had not chirped once.

As she stepped back, Soi Fon gave him a curt nod and the closest thing to a compliment that had so far passed her lips. "Adequate. We are finished for today. Tomorrow, you learn to move on sand."

"Where are we going to meet?" The last time he'd checked, Soul Society had no deserts and few beaches.

"We'll be here again. The Academy staff will be putting a thin layer of sand on the floor," Yoruichi answered, tying her hair back from where it had loosened over the course of the fight. "We've got no dunes for you to practice moving on, and if you have to get to Las Noches over land you can just air-walk above them. We're just making sure that if you do have to come to earth, you won't leave any traces behind you."

"Won't the instructors be kind of mad about having a bunch of sand in their training room?"

Soi Fon sniffed disdainfully. "I am a captain, Kurosaki. My orders take precedence. And even if they did not, they have been told to make any accommodation necessary for your training. All classes scheduled in this room were canceled as soon as we arrived to occupy it yesterday."

Ichigo blinked as he grabbed his sword from where it lay propped against the wall next to the door. "Oh. That… kind of sucks for the students."

"It won't be for long. As soon as you learn to shunpo silently, we'll move to a mock setup of the corridors of Las Noches. You'll be practicing avoiding patrols and cameras." Yoruichi paused and looked at Ichigo in consideration. "The guard's won't have any trouble telling where you are, though. Your spirit pressure will give you away before we even get started. I'll have to ask Kisuke for some way to get around that."

"It won't be a problem when I go to Hueco Mundo."

"No, but we want to make the simulation as realistic as possible, and you're not going to be sneaking up on anyone leaking reiatsu everywhere." Yoruichi joined Soi Fon in the doorway. "You coming?"

"I'll stay here for a bit, if there's no one else coming to use the room."

"See you tonight, then."

Ichigo absently raised his right hand in farewell as his two instructors left the building, then used the upraised hand to call his visor across his face. With a reach and a pull, Zangetsu-no-ossan and the hollow were standing at his sides, and as Ichigo pulled his sword off his back he leapt back to put some distance between him and them.

"This will not be a swordfight, Ichigo." At the dark-clad man's words, the white ribbon re-wrapped itself around the cleaver in Ichigo's hand. Ichigo touched the covered blade, knowing that something had changed with his sword more through hearing the slither of the ribbon than through his reiatsu senses.

"Why not?"

"We've always gotten better through fighting, King. You'll see us faster if you can feel me kicking the shit out of you." The hollow sank into an indistinct guarding stance- indistinct only because Ichigo was still having trouble distinguishing body parts when they were held close to the body. He could picture the scene, though; the stance was one Ichigo had learned as a child with Tatsuki, and which therefore they all knew.

Ichigo snorted, taking a matching pose. "And that's your only motivation?"

He could hear the smirk in his doppelgangers' twisted tones. "There are other benefits."

Ichigo started the fight with a flying side kick, moving so fast it was almost, but not quite, a flash-step. The hollow danced out of the way and counterkicked with a roundhouse to the head that Ichigo blocked as he landed noiselessly where his pale double had been a half-second before. They exchanged a set of punches and back-hands until Ichigo's second sight blinked out and he disengaged, jumping back blind. He could hold the sensing for several minutes during calm conversation, but it was far harder during the activity of a fight. He knew that a strike was coming through the hollow's triumphant yell from above him as he came down, and as his senses came back he brought his arms up to catch the ax-kick on his crossed arms, grunting as the force of the blow shuddered down his body and almost brought him to his knees.

Ichigo rose up and heaved the hollow away, and the boys attacked each other simultaneously, coming close and simply throwing punches at each other. It became less of a martial arts match and more of a slugfest, of the type that Ichigo was familiar with from many street fights and that fit the hollow's brutal fighting style perfectly. They blocked what they could and absorbed what they couldn't, and no shot was too cheap. As Ichigo managed to turn behind his opponent and land a solid punch to the kidneys, though, Zangetsu-no-ossan moved in. While the hollow grunted slightly in pain, he sent a simple, extremely fast strike towards Ichigo's face. The hilt of his sword hit the visor across Ichigo's eyes, and as it shattered Ichigo saw light for the first time since the fight had started.

"You have lost." The zanpakuto spirit's sunglasses reappeared on his face, unbroken, and he stepped back as the two boys moved away from each other.

"You enjoy breaking up my fights, don't you?" The hollow wiped blood away from his split lip as Ichigo rubbed a section of his chin that would soon be turning a beautiful purple color.

"Aizen cannot match us physically." Zangetsu-no-ossan's tone was calm as Ichigo called the visor back, complete once more. Ichigo felt him take a guarding stance, ready to join the fight rather than watch now that his point had been made. "The Hogyoku has not woken yet. The only advantage he has is the hypnotic power of Kyoka Suigetsu. The visor will be his first target, and he may have time to attempt kido from a distance. Keep your eyes closed, and call it back the second it disappears."

The fight began again, and it was once more two against one. Ichigo had to use shunpo to get out from between them as they worked perfectly together to try to flank him. The floor began chirping as he used it to stop the full speed of the flash-step, and in what little concentration he had left over from the fight he tried to soften the force of his landings.

Rather than engage them together, Ichigo circled around behind Zangetsu-no-ossan to engage him alone. He'd never fought his sword hand-to-hand. His style was far more defensive than the hollows', who relied on the ferocity of his attacks rather than the strength of his guard to avoid injury. However, that did not mean that the older man would not attack, and he used his height to his advantage when, as Ichigo tried to dart in for a punch, he sent a spinning hook kick to Ichigo's face before his wielder got anywhere near him. The visor shattered once again, but this time, Ichigo had known the object of the strike and jumped back with his eyes tightly closed, waiting just a heartbeat before pulling with his right hand and re-forming the visor.

Ichigo was beginning to appreciate the advantage of the reiatsu sensing more and more as the fight went on and it became clear that it was impossible to sneak up on him. Each time he engaged one of his powers and the other attempted to attack from behind, he flash-stepped out from between them. His landing became quieter each time. He still couldn't hold the sense for very long during the heat of the fight, and took his worst hits when completely blind, but the time between blackouts increased by a few seconds each time.

Finally they came to a halt, all of them sporting new collections of bruises. Ichigo pulled off of the visor, and as it dissolved Zangetsu-no-ossan's sunglasses reappeared on his face.

"We've acquired an audience."

"Hard to miss them." Ichigo didn't bother glancing at the windows and door, where Shino Academy students were cautiously peering in. They scattered as the hollow turned to grin at them.

"Wanna give 'em a show, partner?"

"If I put on the mask it'll cause a panic." As he stretched his arms above his head, Ichigo realized that would be a problem when he tried to hollowify as well. They should probably move to Urahara's old training ground before trying.

"It would be prudent, however, to ensure that my younger self will still be able to lend you the blindfold," his sword murmured, "and you will need to practice moving silently with the increased speed you are capable of in Bankai."

"Can I release if you're out here?"

"If I allow you to do so." Behind him, the students were once more curiously peeking in.

Ichigo smirked. It wasn't like he'd ever needed an excuse. "Bankai. Tensa Zangetsu."

As the two teenager's coats changed and longswords appeared in their hands, the zanpakuto spirit shrank and shifted to Tensa Zangetsu's younger form. The three young men faced each other in a triangle, standing silently on the nightingale floor. Ichigo called the visor without any difficulty. The stillness lasted for a single instant before they _moved_.

What followed was a display the likes of which the students had never seen- and, for the most part, still couldn't. The only time the awed watchers could see any of the fighters was when their swords collided, causing their movement to be arrested for the brief moment of their clash. The power behind the blows more than once caused the bravest, those who had entered the doorway itself, to stagger back simply from the shock waves they formed.

Because they could not see the fighters, however, they also could not see the sheer, unadulterated _fun_ that they were having. Their swords could not harm each other, and the fight was not a training session so much as it was a free-for-all. It was every teenager for himself, and the only sound in the room was the clashing of blades and the occasional noise of satisfaction as a strike harmlessly hit its target. Ichigo found that the resolution of his senses increased in Bankai; although he couldn't hold his reiatsu sense for any longer than he had already been able to (and he instantly became the focus of the other two's concerted attacks as soon as the second sight disappeared), he was able to 'see' considerably better. The avatars of his power had gone from human-shaped blobs to merely human-shaped, and his range extended farther, throughout the room and past the walls to where the students gaped at the non-sight of the heights of power they might someday attain.

Ichigo felt several familiar presences approach the door, and the students were chased away for good by the armbands three of them were wearing. They waited by the door, watching the fight until two of the three young men abruptly disappeared as the third cursed. Ichigo dropped out of Bankai with a sigh and turned to Rukia, Renji, Ise Nanao, and Korutsuchi Nemu.

"What's up? Renji, have they let you out already?" Renji answered in the affirmative as Ichigo replaced Zangetsu on his back and moved sllently across the nightingale floor to join them.

"Good afternoon, Kurosaki-san," Nanao began. "We have come to retrieve the recordings of the projections you showed the captains yesterday. They will be the subject of the vice-captain's meeting in half an hour."

Ichigo pointed to where the globe rested, next to the spot against the wall where his sword had been leaning. "Right there. Why aren't they just letting you guys see it when I show it the first time?"

Nemu retrieved the projector and ejected a chip from its base, replacing it with a fresh one before giving it to Ichigo. "We will be present at the meeting tonight. It is more efficient than holding a separate meeting the next day simply for us to catch up, and the probability that you will show anything in the captain's meetings that the vice-captains will not need to also know has been deemed low."

"See you tonight, then." Ichigo moved past them. He still had some time before dinner, and there were a few things he had been meaning to take care of. "Renji, you go to a barber near here, right?"

"Yeah, he's in the first district. I've been going to the same shop since I was a student. Doesn't charge too much, and he's pretty good…" Renji trailed off while staring past Ichigo's shoulder, abruptly sweating. "…but he's busy. Very busy. The lines are always really long."

Ichigo glanced back, but saw only the three female shinigami- nothing to account for Renji's sudden nervousness or the sharp spike of killing intent he'd sensed from behind him. "Too bad- the guy I went to near the fourth said they were booked for the next month. I'll find someone else."

The two female lieutenants quickly hurried away to prepare for the meeting. As they were leaving, Ichigo scratched his head in perplexity. He'd caught a quiet query from Nemu, something about expanding operations into the Rukongai, before she was quickly shushed by Nanao. He dismissed the question and turned back to his friends. "So you're both back on duty, then?"

"Yes, Unohana-taicho had just released Renji when Ise-fukataicho and Korutsuchi-fukataicho came looking for you. Because we are the most familiar with your reiatsu, we offered to help them look." Rukia moved inside, stepping onto the nightingale floor and listening to it move and chirp underneath her. "Renji is back on light duty, and tomorrow I will be given a desk assignment at the Thirteenth until my power is fully recovered."

"Tomorrow? Isn't that a bit soon?" Ichigo tried to remember the way this had gone the first time. It was the sixth day after the betrayal, so in the first timeline the humans would have left two days from now. She had been off duty when they returned to the human world the first time; had Ukitake let her stay on the inactive list until her friends left?

"There is nothing physically wrong with me, Ichigo. It was generous of Ukitake-taicho to allow me as much time off as he did to recover from the execution."

If she was on duty tomorrow… "Are you going to the Shiba's today, then? I wanted to come along."

Rukia looked at him in surprise. "I was not planning on doing so. Why do you ask?"

"You were going to talk to them about their brother…"

"Ah. No. We have already had that conversation. Kukaku-dono declared that my debt to the family was repaid when I gave you my powers to save your sisters." She smiled, knowing that she could finally let go of the crushing guilt that had weighed her down for the past decades. "Kaien-dono can rest in peace."

Ichigo flinched. "Oh. Good. I'll go on my own, then. I've got some time before the meeting this evening." He searched for a way to change the subject as she glanced at him in mild confusion- Rukia had always been able to read him like an open book, she'd _know_ something was wrong if they kept talking about his newly found cousins- "How are things going with Byakuya? He tell you about your sister yet?"

The distraction worked; Rukia looked away uncomfortably. "He informed me why I was adopted into the Kuchiki family, yes. Our interactions are otherwise ordinary. We have never been close."

Ichigo's frown deepened slightly. Byakuya had a stick so far up his ass it would need surgical removal. He raised the projector in his hand, and called up a memory Rukia remembered all too well- but as the projected Aizen drew the Hogyoku from her chest, the scene diverged.

"Renji's about to see this at the meeting, but you won't be there."

/_"Unfortunately, you are no longer needed. Kill her, Gin."_

"_All right," the fox-faced man said, drawing his sword. "Shoot to kill, Shinsou."_

"_Nii-sama!"_/

Ichigo didn't look at Rukia's reaction, just spoke to the air in the opposite direction. "He was already on his way to get you. I didn't change that. A lot of shit happened, and he was always there for you. See you tonight, Renji."

In a flash, he was gone. Rukia shook her head behind him, smiling slightly.

"I remember now. That was the reason I wanted to save him in the first place."

"Huh." Renji, almost forgotten off to the side, scratched his head. "Taicho was trying to kill you himself. What changed?"

"Maybe Nii-sama did." Rukia glanced over to where the image of Gin had stood. "I do not like that man. He might have been intending to kill Aizen, but he is still horrible."

"Dunno what Matsumoto sees in him," Renji agreed. He turned to walk into the room, trying his own luck on the floor. "He wasn't making any noise. He might not suck at this as much as I thought he would."

"Three months ago, I was telling him what parts of the hollow to hit," Rukia said quietly, joining him. "I could not see him moving when we arrived."

"The kid had some time to catch up."

"Months. Months, to surpass us all. If I had anything left to teach him, only he remembers it."

"Doesn't seem like he forgets a debt too easily. Or a friendship."

Rukia smiled. "No. No, he doesn't."

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Ichigo passed into the Rukongai easily through the West Gate, with Jidanbo cheerfully lifting the portal and sending his regards to Orihime. He flash-stepped to the Shiba's bizarrely shaped house and found Kukaku 'training' Ganju in a one-on-one Kido match in the Dojo. She stopped attacking when Ichigo entered the dojo, and Ganju collapsed wheezing onto the floor.

"Finally decided to swing by, huh?" She smirked at Ichigo, pulling her pipe from out of her mouth, where it hadn't even wavered as she was chanting Kido.

"Don't make it sound like I was avoiding you," Ichigo said defensively. "I just got out of the hospital yesterday."

"I'm messing with you, brat. Relax. You staying for dinner?"

Ichigo shrugged, and the three left the dojo together. The meal that followed was a form of interaction that he had desperately needed without realizing it. Ichigo had not gotten to know the Shibas particularly well after they left Soul Society; except for the brief period staying at the house while hunting the Bounts, they all had the same memories of each other, and had all chosen to spend the time trying to get to know each other better. Ichigo heard brief stories of his father from their childhoods, and told stories and shared memories of the cousins they had never seen, and of both his parents.

As the meal was ending, Ichigo finally asked the question that had been nagging at his mind ever since he had found out about the family connection. "Did you guess who my father was, when Yoruichi brought us here?"

Ganju shook his head and started to answer, but Kukaku smacked him and took over. "Nah. Yoruichi asked, and that was enough. The resemblance might've helped a bit, but we'd have done it anyway. And you were pretty pathetic, really. You ever get better at kido?"

"No."

"I saved your ass a couple of times with it. It ain't all swords." Ganju said that as much to Kukaku, who had been training him unmercifully for the past week, as to Ichigo.

"I'll work on it. I've got a life, though. It's gonna take a while." Years, if Ukitake was correct, and if he kept getting more powerful that might be a conservative estimate.

"There are a few techniques we keep inside the family. When you've advanced to barely competent, come back and we'll teach you." It was pretty clear that Kukaku wouldn't be taking no for an answer. "Can you stay until dark?"

Ichigo shook his head. "The meetings are scheduled in the evening. I need to be getting back soon, actually."

"Come by when you're done. I'm setting up a fireworks display tonight. I'll hold it until you're free."

"What's the occasion?" Ichigo didn't think there had been a festival going on, the first time.

Ganju smirked. "The birth of a boy and twin girls to the Shiba family. You'd better be here, shinigami."

Ichigo smirked back. "I'll send my sisters the memory. See you tonight." With that, he left the room and went up the stairs to the entrance of the house, moving reluctantly.

Ichigo was not looking forward to the upcoming hours. He hadn't really minded giving the shinigami the memories of the fight with Aizen when he had been winning, but he would not be showing himself at his best tonight.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo stood in the center of the room between the assembled captains and vice captains of the Gotei 13. The only one missing was Hinamori, and Ichigo couldn't help but be grateful that she hadn't regained consciousness yet. It was bad enough that Toshiro was going to see himself stab her.

He took a deep breath, raised the projector, and began as he and Unohana were reaching the end of their path, which was rough but solid under their feet. As the end of the Garganta approached, the opening widened, and the captains could see Aizen's back through the hole. Ichigo's image dove through, struck, and was blocked by the kido Aizen had put there to guard his back.

"Like I said," Ichigo glanced at Yoruichi, where she leaned against the back wall with Orihime and Ishida, "he guards his blind spots."

Ichigo let the memory progress, doing his best to ignore the fact that pretty much every shinigami he'd ever fought beside was watching Aizen kick his ass just as thoroughly as he had shown himself kicking Aizen's the day before.

/_"Opening up distance only matters in a battle between equals. For you and me it makes no difference." The traitor was suddenly deep within Ichigo's personal space, one hand on his chest. "Look how easily I can touch your heart."_/

"Why bother taunting you? Why not just kill you there?" Ishida asked, frowning.

Ichigo glanced back. "He's sadistic." His actions with Hinamori proved that. "It wasn't just me. He left everyone alive to see him win."

/ _"I can tell from your expression that all of your friends are still alive. Given this, can you truly hate me from the bottom of your heart? You cannot. You are without hatred. Your sword is merely guided by a sense of duty. Such a blade has no hope of touching me._/

Ichigo watched grimly as his image faltered and prepared to attack in desperation, just to shut him up, until the captain of the Seventh stopped him with a hand on his blade.

/ _"Provocation is his stock in trade. If you lose control even for a second, you'll lose your life." The wolf was clearly badly wounded, but glanced down at him reassuringly anyway. "Don't worry. The first order of priority for the captains in Hueco Mundo was to get you here as quickly as possible, and we know why. We will not let you see Aizen's shikai!"_/

"Is that why I was not present, Kurosaki Ichigo?" Byakuya asked, while in the projection the captains of the Second, Eighth, and Tenth divisions flash-stepped to their side.

"Yeah."

The surroundings shifted to a desert, and Kenpachi appeared in front of the projected Ichigo, who was clearly badly wounded.

/_ "Urahara Kisuke. That guy received orders from Yama-jii back when we decided that the major battle would be in winter. One of those orders was to stabilize the Garganta so that shinigami at a captain's level could pass to Hueco Mundo safely at full power. We initially planned for it to be finished in three months, but he said it could be finished in just one month. What's more, that girl over there was suddenly kidnapped."_/

"He sent you, Kenpachi, Mayuri, Unohana, and your Vice-captains. You and Kenpachi were back in Hueco Mundo fighting the strongest Espada."

Yamamoto opened his eyes slightly in irritation at a decision he would hopefully never have to make. It was unlikely that his future self had suddenly had a change of heart regarding the prudence of rescuing the girl. Given the orders the captains had had, it was far more likely that he had chosen to risk a third of his highest officers, including _both_ of his top healers, in order to retrieve a potential trump card for the battle. Given the outcome, it had been the correct decision. It had still been an incredible gamble, and one that should not have been necessary.

As the projection returned to the skies above the Fake Karakura and every fighter still mobile moved between Ichigo and Aizen, Higsaguya interrupted.

"Who are they?"

"Yadomaru Lisa," Shunsui answered quietly, indicating the woman in the school uniform as Ichigo stopped the memory. "My former lieutenant, hollowified a century ago. Shinji Hirako, Aizen's predecessor in the Fifth. Otoribashi Rose, the former captain of the Third, and Aikiwa Love, who led the Seventh before Ichigo-san's father."

Ichigo blinked.

"Where are the others?" Yoruichi asked, knowing that the Vizards who would soon be watching the recording of this would want the answer.

Ichigo gestured into the floor and behind them. "Hachi and Hiyori are back there. Hachi'd lost an arm at some point, and Hiyori was pretty badly cut up. Kensei and Mashiro…" He shook his head. "I don't know."

He started the projection again, and at the front of the room, coincidentally right before where Yamamoto was standing, the images of Hitsugaya and Shunsui began to attack Aizen. In the middle, where the true Ichigo was standing, Komamura's image thanked Ichigo for his timing, saying that he would have attacked Aizen out of anger and been killed if he had not appeared.

The Komamura of the present time sighed, looking over to the left. Tosen's body was clearly visible on a large slab of rubble. There were not many things that could have made him lose his control to such a degree. Whether he had killed Tosen or not, he had clearly never stopped considering him his friend.

/ _"Anyway, why didn't you bring Orihime-chan back with you? If she were here, she could have healed us all in a flash, and we'd be fighting Aizen as good as new." _/

Orihime blushed and frantically shook her head at the glances from the rest of the room when they heard the blond former captain's opinion of her powers.

"I can't do that!" Even when she had been able to use the Shun Shun Rikka, it took her a long time to heal serious wounds.

"She'll be able to," Ichigo confirmed absently. At his words, Orihime began blushing even harder, while Unohana raised a speculative eyebrow. In the floor below them, her image approached the wounded Vizards. "She can heal damage better than anyone. Reiatsu takes longer, though."

/ "_Listen up, Ichigo. We'll protect you. You can pay us back by protecting what you feel you need to."_/

Ichigo closed his eyes as he remembered Shinji's final words to him. Their positions were reversed, now. They were sheltering his family, the little sisters he would walk into the gates of Hell itself for, and he would protect them all by finishing the fight begun a century ago.

Finally, Soi Fon had her say.

/ "_How much longer are you planning on standing there? We'll only be able to create an opening for an instant. Don't miss your chance." The assassin strode forward, one arm missing and one leg withered. "Don't think we're ready to lay down our lives in battle. We're fighting to survive. Talking about saving the world is nothing but pretty words. We're fighting to make sure we survive, that you survive, and to make sure that everyone else is kept safe from Aizen. Don't fall behind, Kurosaki Ichigo."_/

"What happened?" Soi Fon asked upon seeing her grievous wounds, though she allowed herself to feel some pride that she was still functioning.

"Sorry. You know as much as I do now. He took three of his top Arrancars with him. Everyone on his side was dead before I got there except for Gin, but they must have been strong."

In front and above him, just below where the high-arched roof would have been if it had been visible, Aizen was now trying his mind games on Hitsugaya's future self.

/ "_Are you telling me there is no hatred within that sword you hold ready? Or is it that the second Hinamori-kun joined us here in full health, your hatred just vanished into thin air?"_/

"She'll get better, then!" Kira Izuru exclaimed in relief from his position behind Gin. Of Momo's friends in the audience, Toshiro was the only one who did not react with pleasure.

As Kyoraku's attack interrupted the illusory conversation, drawing Aizen's poisonous attention away from yet another vulnerable young man, Hitsugaya's image snapped, and went into Bankai. Toshiro turned his head and met Ichigo's eyes from his place from his place in front and to the right of him. Ichigo shook his head slightly. The oldest captain, directly in front of and facing Ichigo, was the only one to notice the short exchange.

/ _"If there is hatred in my sword, then I am not fit to be a captain either. Is that what you want to say?" Crystalline ice wings sprouted from the youngest captain's back as he faced Aizen. "It's true. I don't care if I lose my position as captain, as long as I can kill you./_

Before the ice-winged young man in the air above them could attack in earnest, Komamura, Rose, Love, and Lisa took over the fight. They were defeated effortlessly, although Komamura entered Bankai and Lisa summoned her mask.

/ "_Hollowification? I already told you. You are merely botched pseudo-Arrancars. Pseudo-Arrancars have no business challenging the man who conquered the real thing."_/

"No way…" Iba muttered, echoing the disbelief of the projected Ichigo and several of the other vice-captains in the audience. Above their heads Soi Fon's intangible double stepped up and separated into many clones of herself, and as ice immobilized Aizen's sword for a brief moment she struck with two blows, ineffectively. Ichigo met Toshiro's eyes and jerked his thumb upwards. The white-haired youth nodded slightly, steeling himself for what he knew was about to come.

Unlike their projected counterparts, all of the observers were able to see Aizen's momentary flicker of surprise as he realized that he was caught in Shinji's reversed world, and then, as the future Ichigo screamed a futile warning, the swirl of white ribbon that marked a high level transportation kido.

/ _"What the hell do you think you're doing! ?"/_

After the captain of the Tenth Division had stabbed his oldest friend, the observers were able to see the exact moment that Aizen allowed them to realize what was happening.

/ _"How long have you been using Kyoka Suigetsu?" one former captain of the Fifth screamed to the other._

"_Allow me to ask you this in return: How long have you been deluding yourself into thinking that I was not using Kyoka Suigetsu?_"/

Hitsugaya watched expressionlessly, ignoring the sidelong glances from the rest of the room, as his double went berserk and attempted to charge Aizen while the other three attempted to stop him. He allowed himself to feel grateful that Kurosaki had thought to warn him.

In the projection of the sky above Karakura, Hitsugaya fell first, then Soi Fon. Shinji and Kyoraku attacked simultaneously, and Shinji came up against the same kido that had blocked Ichigo's initial attack while Aizen defeated Kyoraku, who made no move to defend against the sword he likely wasn't even allowed to see. Shinji's final charge was to the side of Aizen's actual position, and he, like Kyoraku, was unable to see the sword that took him down.

/ "_I will not kill you. You should all be strong enough to bear these injuries without even losing consciousness. Just watch. Lie prostrate on the ground, powerless to interfere, and witness the end of this battle_."/

Ichigo closed his eyes, remembering the despair and resignation that had overcome him at that moment. Eight fighters, each of whom he would have hesitated to take on one-on-one, and Aizen had destroyed them as easily as he had toyed with Ichigo earlier. He had known he was the only one left, and that it was up to him, and that he was not equal to the challenge.

The captains in front of Ichigo could see the image surrounding the projector in his outstretched hand steel himself before beginning a final, desperate charge- only to be cut off from his opponent by a huge gout of flame.

Yamamoto grunted in satisfaction. It was about time.

The two titans exchanged the pre-fight taunts while Aizen's former self casually strode past Yamamoto's image. The old man threw the first blow at thin air, and turned in surprise to take Aizen's sword directly through the stomach, accompanied by groans and shouts of disbelief from most of the real shinigami.

"Have some faith, idiots," Yamamoto groused.

/ "_I have you, Aizen Sosuke!" The old man tightened the grip on his opponents arm._

"_How interesting. Now what? Can you even be sure that you are really holding my arm? You already know what Kyoka Suigetsu can do."_

"_Are you telling me this is part of your Perfect Hypnosis? I see now. If it was just what I saw with my eyes, or what I felt with my skin, then it could well be. But I would never mistake the reiatsu of the sword through my stomach."_/

"Not bad, Yama-jii," Kyoraku murmured. Around them, the flames of Ennetsu Jigoku appeared, so vivid that the true shinigami could almost feel the searing heat, as Yamamoto revealed that he had been setting up the trap while his subordinates fought. As his final act, Yamamoto ordered Ichigo to retreat.

/ "_You are not part of the Gotei 13. You must not be caught in the blast."_

"_Jii-san…"_

"_Flee at once!"_

"_And what of your other soldiers?" Aizen murmured. "They will also be caught in the blast."_

"_They are all prepared for this. To die to vanquish evil is the way of the Gotei 13."_/

Ichigo's image hesitated for a long moment, but whether he would have retreated or not was left for the surrounding officer's imagination, for the fight was interrupted by the arrancar with the power to extinguish his flames. Aizen escaped Yamamoto's grip and explained how he had created Wonderweiss for a single task- sealing the Soutaicho's flames.

/"_There is nothing you can do against the power for which Wonderweiss has sacrificed everything. Farewell, Yamamoto Genryusai."_/

"Shit…" someone muttered behind Ichigo.

"Watch." As Ichigo spoke, the image of the retarded Arrancar far to their right was sent flying through four buildings with a single punch.

/ _"Did you think that sealing Ryuujin Jakka was all it took to defeat me? How naïve. How dizzyingly naïve. Why do you think I have led the Gotei 13 for more than a thousand years? In one thousand years, no shinigami has been born who was stronger than me."_/

Ichigo completely missed the sidelong glances he was receiving. Yamamoto did not.

Wonderweiss was easily defeated, and as the images of the two men exchanged words, Byakuya frowned slightly. "Aizen did not interfere in the fight. Yamamoto-soutaicho saw everything that you did."

"He wanted him to win," Ichigo answered shortly. The next query died on Byakuya's lips at Aizen's final question.

/ _"Where do you think those flames were sealed?_"/

In front of them they could see the illusory Yamamoto's eyes widen before he turned and contained the vast majority of the force from the sudden release of his flames with his own body, accompanied by Aizen's mocking applause and thanks. When the traitor approached to finish the job, the old man proved that he was by no means defeated.

/ _"Hado 96: Ikkoukasou!"_/

They saw the blade of destruction rise from the ground, closer as Ichigo's image followed, waiting… and then groaned as Aizen leapt from the reach of the Hado, singed but largely unharmed. As he turned, the scenery shifted around them as the projection surrounding the globe in Ichigo's hand jumped, finally taking the opening, and wounded him deeply in the shoulder with a Getsuga Tenshou. No-one was surprised when it quickly healed, as Aizen 's image pulled back his shirt to reveal the Hogyoku in his chest.

The memory continued through Aizen's claim that every single fight Ichigo had been in had been orchestrated by Aizen.

"Do you know why he did that, Kurosaki?" Soi Fon asked. If they had been that easily manipulated…

"Still not sure he did. He might have just been fucking with me." Ichigo paused, then admitted slightly grudgingly, "… it worked."

/ _"Don't give me anymore bullshit."_

"_Did you not hear me? From the beginning. I have been watching you since the day you were born."_ /

"That part was probably true, if he'd figured out where my dad was."

The assembled shinigami were all able to see the expression of complete shock on Ichigo's face when Isshin showed up, before the projection skipped forward to the beginning of the fight with Gin. The conversation with his father was none of their business, in Ichigo's opinion.

/ "_Ban-kai. Kamishini no Yari."_/ Gin's eyes opened to slightly in surprise.

"You said he didn't fight you seriously," Matsumoto said, slightly pale, as the rest of the shinigami in the room processed the fresh reminder of how ruthless the man would have been in pursuit of his goal.

"I think he just needed an excuse to be in Bankai," Ichigo answered nonchalantly. "This was getting pretty close to the stuff I showed in the trial. We spent as much time talking as fighting."

Most of the observers disagreed as the battle between the two images waged fast and furious, sword-Bankai to sword-Bankai, with neither having the clear advantage. They divided their attention between the off-again, on-again fight and what Ichigo had sensed of Isshin's exchange with Aizen. It was off in the distance, for the most part, but Aizen's voice had a way of carrying.

/ "_The will of the Hogyoku has finally begun to understand my heart."_/

Their attention was once again focused entirely on the center of the room when father and son came together again while white tendrils began erupting from Aizen's body. Suddenly, a red light passed through Aizen's right shoulder.

"Lousy aim. He's losing his touch," Yoruichi smirked.

/ "_So you've finally come, Urahara Kisuke."_/

They watched alongside the images of Ichigo and Isshin as Aizen stabbed Urahara's fake gigai and as Urahara hit Aizen repeatedly with Bakuda, finishing the sequence with a Hado 91: Senjo Koten Taiho. The only difference Aizen's image showed was the growth of the white carapace to cover half his face.

/ "_Aizen-san. It would appear you really did lower your guard when you absorbed the Hogyoku."_

"_Exactly._" _The white-clad man appeared behind him and slashed with his bare hand. "I did lower my guard. There is no longer any need to be on my guard. I can feel it. Even when I was in Soul Society, no-one could compare to my powers. But now that I have subjugated the Hogyoku, my body has surpassed even that. There is no longer any need to dodge a kido at the ninties level"_

"_You've got it wrong. The old you would never have attempted to attack me twice without thinking." Across from him, two shimmering circlets of light appeared around his opponent's wrists. "I've sealed the outlets for spiritual pressure that are on the wrists of every Soul Reaper. You will be incinerated from the inside by your own spiritual pressure."_/

The explosion was gigantic, and the memory of Urahara dropped down to the level of the observers.

/_ "It's not over yet. It would be child's play if that was all it took to defeat him. We could laugh him off as a mere monster."_/

Once again, there were muffled snickers from the surrounding captains and assistant captains as the blinding white light above them died to reveal that Aizen had shifted form for the first time to the white chrysalis stage. The memory continued as Urahara and Isshin attacked and immobilized him for long enough for Yoruichi to attack him with modified arm and leg-guards, but Aizen's image just shrugged off the blows.

/ "_The number of methods you contrived to defeat me is proof of your effort and strength. At the same time, it represents the number of hopes you hold. If that is so, then what I must do is to crush each and every one of them. Now, come at me with your next attack."_/

"The last hope," Renji muttered, remembering a conversation with Ichigo three days ago. "Shit."

"Getting a bit arrogant, isn't he?" Kyoraku Shunsui remarked. "Is that the Hogyoku, or has he just gone mad with power?"

Ichigo shrugged, watching his images' increasing lack of resolve as the reality of Aizen's reiatsu, which no one else on the battlefield could sense, began to weigh down upon him as the three former captains attacked the traitor repeatedly and were blown back without apparent effort.

/ "_Pay attention. Your back is wide open." The black-clad boy turned to the speaker in surprise. "Just kidding! How about we take a break for a minute?_"/

Matsumoto relaxed, relieved, for the few minutes until the memory proceeded to the end of the conversation.

/ "_He's going to kill all of you. It's all over."_

"_I'm not letting that happen."_

"_Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say."_

"_And there's no telling what Aizen would do to you, now that he's like that!"_

_The silver-haired man paused briefly, recalculating. "Oh my, now I wasn't expecting you to say that. The way you said it… sounds like you said it assuming you'd die. Maybe somewhere inside of you, you've already given up on this fight."_/

Ichigo grimaced. The man had been devastatingly perceptive. His inner world would have been completely flooded by his despair at that point. The fight between them began once again, and none of the observers could tell if Gin was trying to kill Ichigo in a twisted game of cat-and-mouse or of he was genuinely trying to revive his fighting spirit. In the distance, Aizen continued to absorb every attack his opponents made without seriously retaliating. Finally, Ichigo's image was left kneeling on the ground, sword still in hand, but unable to attack.

/ "_Get out of here. You don't want to die yet, do you? I'm not interested in you anymore. Aizen-taicho would probably be disappointed in you the way you are now."_

_The boy just looked at him in shock._

"_You're afraid of Aizen-taicho, aren't you? You understand his power."_/

"What did he mean?" Yoruichi asked.

"They… you… couldn't feel his reiatsu after he was covered by the white stuff," Ichigo answered shortly. That _Gin_ had noticed and taunted him endlessly about it was almost the worst part of the memories he was showing, even worse than when Aizen had toyed with him. Aizen had done that to everyone, after all. He was pretty sure the man just wanted to leave someone behind to take care of Aizen if he'd failed, but still…

/ "_That was your last warning. If you still won't leave, I will kill you. Right here, right now."_/

"At least you said _if_," Komamura muttered to the Third Division Captain, as the space at the back of the room exploded into dust and three defeated shinigami.

"It hasn't happened yet, now has it?" Gin replied cheerfully.

"The trial is finished, and will not be reopened," Yamamoto said, to Komamura, to the similar grumblings around the room, and particularly to Hitsugaya Toshiro, whose hand was drifting closer to the sword slung across his back. In the projection Aizen chided Gin for preparing to kill Ichigo, while the white carapace over his face molted off to reveal the form they had seen in Gin's trial. Gin's image opened a Senkaimon, and Aizen turned back to where Ichigo had been crouching with one final remark.

/ "_We are leaving you here. You shall be devoured after everything is finished."_/

"Whatever that means," Ichigo muttered, ending the memory before it could show his father helping him regain his fighting spirit. He had embarrassed himself more than enough for one night. "On his way through, Aizen destroyed your reiatsu-train thing, and Dad stopped the time current for about three months so I could train. We finished the fight later that day."

"Was that, then, the three months you spent in Bankai, Kurosaki-san?" Ukitake asked, finally finding a satisfactory answer to a question that had been occasionally nagging him for the past two days.

"Yeah, that was it," Ichigo confirmed absently, too lost in his own thoughts to notice the shocked looks from most of the room. Ukitake's question opened the floor to others, and the captains and vice-captains asked for explanations, clarifications, or simple repetitions of particular parts of all of the memories Ichigo had shown so far. The session stretched on for another hour before Yamamoto finally called a halt for the evening and dismissed his officers.

"Stay behind, Kurosaki." The Soutaicho waited as Ichigo sighed and said goodnight to Yoruichi, Ishida, and Orihime before turning back to him as they filed out.

"Look, I've told you already I'm not sorry I didn't kill you."

"You had already seen that I was willing to die to defeat Aizen, boy. You should have taken him down when you had the chance. That is not why I had you stay behind, however." Yamamoto opened his eyes slightly. "Tonight we will be discussing your actions in the battle in the human world."

"I've got another appointment tonight, jii-san." It had been dark for an hour, and Ichigo was pretty sure that Kukaku would be unbearable if she were forced to wait too long.

"If you do not learn from your mistakes, you will repeat them, Kurosaki." What followed was a play-by-play discussion of the s missed opportunities and errors in the battle above the fake Karakua town, for everyone and not just Ichigo, and of the strengths and weaknesses of each separate attempt to kill Aizen. Yamamoto did not spare himself the criticism, and instead discussed the effectiveness of his trap and how Aizen countered it.

When they finished, Ichigo's head was ringing from the discussion of strategy and tactics, and he made his escape gratefully. After letting Jidanbo know that he wouldn't be back that evening, he spent the rest of the night at the Shiba House, watching as Kukaku put on a fireworks display that dwarfed any he had seen in the living world. After setting off a few of his own, at their insistence, he took a futon in the same guest room he had stayed in before, and fell asleep contented.

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Author's Note:

Thanks in this chapter go to Neo Ryu, who suggested that I have Chad be trained by the Vizards when I was looking for a way to bring him back into the story. Chad hadn't had a speaking part since the first chapter, and I love his character.

The next chapter will be up two weeks, after which I hope to return to my original once-a-week updating schedule. Since I've been getting questions about this in reviews, I would like to confirm that I do know where this story is going; the ending has been planned since well before I started posting. The current version of the outline has fourteen chapters and an epilogue; it's been revised three times already, so that definitely is not a fixed number. The next chapter will have, at a minimum: Ukitake's illness, the lecture on the Espada, Toshiro's movie, and a look at Isshin's reaction to all this.

**The teaser:**

"Tell me about my son's zanpakuto."


	8. Chapter 7 Paternal Concerns

Special thanks in this chapter go to all of the people who answered the question or filled out the poll from chapter 3, and in particular to PuppetMaster55, whose response of 'House did an episode on it' inspired the reason for Ishida's knowledge. And, yes, Fox Japan has aired 'House, MD'. I checked.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo walked into the Eleventh Division dojo on the seventh day after he had come back in time, staying in the back and watching Ikkaku spar with his subordinates. With a thought and a pull, Zangetsu-no-ossan and the hollow were standing next to him.

"I'd be able to stay out longer if you brought just me out, you know." Upon hearing the hollows' doubled tones, the members of the eleventh close enough to be curious glanced back, and saw a tall man in black and twin boys with opposite colorings, one with the orange hair that the rumors had made notorious in the Seireitei over the past week. A space quickly cleared between the three and the fight to give them a decent view.

Ichigo glanced at the spirit of his sword. "Is that true?"

He nodded curtly. "The time would likely be doubled, and probably more since you would not have to split your power between two bodies. If you can hold my manifestation for more than an hour and a half, I will be able to begin." Mindful of the listeners from the eleventh, he did not give the specifics of the search out loud.

"Good to know." Ichigo looked back at the hollow. "I'm not letting you out without the old man to keep you out of trouble, though."

"Ah, what's a bit of property damage between friends?"

"OK! Next!" Ikkaku defeated his latest opponent by tossing them through the window of the dojo with a crash of shattered glass. Ichigo prepared to step up, but one of the men in front of him volunteered instead. Ichigo blinked in surprise, but settled back to watch the fight. He'd never really watched many fights between shinigami where they weren't at least using their released zanpakuto; it was interesting to see the differences between his own fighting style and the more formal kendo that the bokken-fighters were using.

When the third seat again called for a volunteer after sending his new partner across the dojo with a broken sword, another man stepped up. Ichigo sighed and leaned the bokken in his hand against the wall. "Are we early or something?"

"No," the zanpakuto spirit responded, "you arrived at the same time. However, the timeline has been changed, and even the events that you may think we have not affected will likely not be identical to what we remember. Perhaps something caused them to begin later."

"We started at our usual time, Ichigo-dono." One of the unseated shinigami nearby, a man with ragged black hair and a scar running across his face, turned slightly to glance back at them. "We are the Eleventh Division. We will not shame ourselves by refusing a fight in your presence."

Ichigo stared at the back of his head. "That's new."

"Kinda looks like fighting Yamamoto's given you some street cred, King."

Ichigo snorted and they watched as each of the men in front of them stepped up, one by one, and were taken out by their superior officer. Few were so injured that they had to go to the Fourth, and even those who probably should have gone, like the man Ikkaku had tossed through the window, dragged themselves back into place in anticipation of what Ichigo's presence might mean. Finally, the only men in the room who had not fought Ikkaku that day were Yumichika, Iba, and Ichigo himself. Ikkaku turned to the orange-haired teen with a smirk.

"You gonna stand there all day?"

"You think you're up for one more?" Ichigo straightened from where he was leaning against the back wall and stretched casually before walking forward, bokken in hand. As the teenager pulled his visor across his eyes, he noticed that since the longer training session yesterday in both Shikai and Bankai, the resolution of his senses had improved considerably. Though Ikkaku wasn't as clear as Tensa Zangetsu and the hollow had been when Ichigo was in Bankai, Ichigo could feel that the third seat's bokken was resting on his right shoulder and that the other arm was at his side. He could focus enough to fight capably, and when they returned to their combined final form his senses would likely be even clearer than they had been in Bankai. The only limitation now was the length of time he could hold his sixth sense; he had to be able to 'see' with it reliably for as long as he was in Hueco Mundo.

Ikkaku looked at the visor in askance. "Hmmm… you got guts, Ichigo. Even if you're blind I'm not gonna go easy on you. You sure you want to do this?"

"You don't think this is a good idea?" Ichigo rubbed his chin in thought, and then nodded. "Yeah, you're right. This is really unequal."

Ikkaku blinked in surprise, not having expected him to listen to reason. "Huh?"

Ichigo smirked. "Maybe if I tied one arm behind my back?"

"Oh, you're going _down_, punk!"

"Alright, bring it!" As their wooden swords met for the first time, Kenpachi entered the dojo, having sensed both familiar spirit pressures rising. The fight paused as Ikkaku looked towards the sliding door and all of the other Eleventh Division members turned around and bowed.

"Yo."

"Good morning, Captain!"

"Good morning," the white-clad man grunted. As he was speaking, the hollow took his sword off his back and whipped the black ribbon on the end around Kenpachi's torso several times, effectively mummifying him.

"You're late. We've only got about fifteen minutes." With that, the hollow hopped to the windowsill and up into the air outside.

"Hey, what the hell? Let me go, dammit…" was the yell they could hear fading into the distance as the hollow sonido'd in the direction of the Execution hill.

Iba, the only other person present who was not a member of the Eleventh, walked to the broken window and looked after them. "What just happened?"

"Icchi brought hollow-chan out to play with Ken-chan!" Yachiru jumped onto Zangetsu-no-ossan's shoulder, hands buried deep into the mane of dark hair. "Let's go!"

Ichigo sensed their respective positions, and pulled the visor off to see the tall dark man looking expressionlessly at the small pink girl burbling on his shoulder. As the glasses appeared on his face, Yachiru promptly pulled them off and place them on her own head, only to have them dissolve as they touched her face and reappear in front of the swords' eyes.

Ichigo had the memory projector. There were going to be pictures. Framed pictures. He was going to _find_ a way to bring them into his inner world so the hollow could have copies.

"Child. You are twice the age of my wielder. Do not think I will allow you liberties I would not allow him."

"They're getting away," Ichigo pointed out, still working too hard fighting back laughter to get annoyed at the reminder of his relative youth. The zanpakuto spirit gave his master a short nod and left the dojo through the sliding doors. As soon as he was over the threshold, he disappeared in a buzz of shunpo, Yachiru's delighted shriek the only remnant of their presence.

"What did he mean, 'you're late'?" Iba walked back to his original spot besides Yumichika.

"Ain't the first time I've been here." Ichigo jerked his right hand across his eyes, calling the visor back. "Last time he showed up more than half an hour ago. Stuff's changing. Are we still gonna do this?"

Ikkaku's response was a battle cry and an overhand strike that Ichigo blocked and forced back up, leaving Ikkaku open when the teenager suddenly disengaged and darted inside his guard to place a glancing blow across the ribs while he passed to Ikkaku's left. The hit didn't faze the bald man, who turned with the blow and answered with a strike aimed across Ichigo's back. It might have landed if Ichigo had been relying on his eyes, but instead he _felt_ the strike coming in from behind. He jumped onto Ikkaku's bokken, as he had once done in their first fight using Ikkaku's scabbard, before leaping back and twisting head-over-heels to land silently in a crouch behind him. Without pausing he lunged forward to the third seat's unguarded back, landing a solid hit that, in a real fight, would probably have severed the spinal cord.

Ikkaku grunted, turning as he felt the blow and bringing his own sword down in a slash that connected with Ichigo's shoulder and would have continued across his torso down to his hip if Ichigo had not leaped back. They paused, adjusting their grips on the hilts in their hands, with Ikkaku holding his bokken in a high guard stance and Ichigo slightly crouched in his typical low guard.

"You've gotten faster." Ikkaku's grin hadn't wavered throughout the short exchange of blows. Faster and stronger, and with a longer reach from the added height, although that wasn't as noticeable because they were both using much shorter weapons than the first time they fought.

"Had to." Ichigo's stab came up at Ikkaku from below, aiming for his heart, and was batted to the side before the third seat brought his own sword down in a downward strike that Ichigo twisted to the side to avoid. They continued to exchange blows in front of the shinigami of the Eleventh for roughly the next five minutes, until, as Ichigo was closing on Ikkaku once more with a lower strike to his knees, his reiatsu sense flickered out. His sword passed harmlessly through the air where Ikkaku's knees had been, meaning that he had no idea where his opponent now was.

Ichigo instantly disengaged, jumping back halfway across the room to get out of range of whatever strike Ikkaku was about to land. He listened, head slightly bowed, while trying to recover his 'sight'.

"An opening!" came the shout from above him, giving him somewhere to focus on, and he brought his sword up blind to try to block the blow. His sense flickered back a second too late to redirect his bokken to meet Ikkaku's incoming leap, and he _felt _the wooden sword slip past his guard, aimed for his head.

He caught the sword in his left hand.

To the observers, Ikkaku seemed to float for a frozen moment, eyes wide, his momentum completely arrested by Ichigo's hand. Then came Ichigo's counterstrike, and the bokken that had failed to block Ikkaku was now at the third seat's left side, where he was completely open. Ikkaku flew across the dojo and slammed against the wall near Iba and Yumichika, leaving an imprint in the wood before slumping onto the floor.

Ichigo opened his left hand. The wooden sword fell in two large pieces and a collection of splinters.

"A beautiful feint," Yumichika murmured from off to the side.

Ikkaku picked himself up. "Faking, Ichigo? Pretty cheap."

"You do anything you can to win," Iba grunted. "Nice shot."

"I wasn't faking." Ichigo walked to the weapons stand at the other corner of the dojo and grabbed another bokken. Sightless, he hurled it at Ikkaku like a javelin. "I can't see for long enough. Aizen's faster than you are. And quieter."

Ikkaku caught the sword by the hilt. "So you're here to get it beaten into you? Happy to help."

"Actually, Ikkaku, I would like a turn," Iba said, placing a hand on the wooden blade. Ikkaku looked at him and nodded shortly, letting him take the bokken.

"Kurosaki Ichigo, how well did you know me?"

"You're Komamura's lieutenant. We never talked much, if that's what you're asking."

Iba nodded, slightly relieved that the boy had not known him well. Ikkaku, he was sure, had been wondering if he had ever revealed a certain secret to the ryoka. "I felt your fight with Kuchiki-taicho. I thought then that I would enjoy the opportunity to fight you. The loser gets the sake."

"Good thing that's gonna be you, then." Ichigo fixed Iba's position in his mind's eye. "I'm underage."

"Human laws, boy. In this compound, if you're old enough to fight, you're old enough to drink." They stayed still for a moment, then moved simultaneously to clash their bokken together, testing each other's strength.

As they exchanged blows, Ichigo found Iba to be more initially cautious than Ikkaku, although that might have been because they had never fought before. As they clashed and pushed each other back and forth across the dojo, their blows sped up, and Iba was the first to start using flash-step, which Ichigo doubted that people usually tried in simple practice bouts. The next time he went 'blind', Iba proved that he had learned from Ikkaku's mistake and simply flash-stepped forward silently and struck him across the torso with the bokken, sending Ichigo flying across the dojo. Ichigo turned sightlessly in mid-air and bounced feet-first off of the wall, angling upwards- and then, naturally, slammed headfirst into the ceiling.

Ikkaku started laughing off to the side as Ichigo started cursing. He quickly found that it was _hard_ to hold his reiatsu sense with a head injury, and he continued to retreat across the dojo as Iba pressed him back. More than once Ichigo had to avoid the older man's strikes, which he couldn't clearly see, by flash stepping around and behind him. Finally, he managed to work past the pounding headache enough to distinguish the incoming sword, and this time, instead of dodging the strike, he stepped into it, forcing Iba's bokken up with a hand on his wrist and resting the edge of his sword on Iba's pulse. They stayed frozen for a minute before Ichigo released him and stepped back, pulling the visor off of his face.

"Not bad, but you didn't seem to be able to attack for a while there," the dark-haired man remarked, resting the bokken on his shoulder.

"I couldn't see your sword." Ichigo rubbed his head, grimacing. There wasn't much point in practicing until the headache was gone; it wasn't too likely that anything would be able to _give_ him a headache in Hueco Mundo. "Thanks for the fight."

"It was my pleasure. It was good to be distracted. It has not been comfortable in the Seventh in the last week."

Ichigo frowned. "How's he doing?"

Iba looked away. "He holds onto the hope that Aizen was deceiving Tosen-taicho. I do not believe he can hate him enough to kill him."

"He's a decent guy. I'd trust his own feelings over anything Aizen said."

"I will tell him you said so." Iba placed the bokken in its rack. "Care for a drink?"

"Um, no." How early did they _start_? "I'm gonna head back to the Fourth. See you tonight."

The assembly had been breaking up as it became clear the fighting was over, and Ichigo leaned back against the wall next to his sword for a minute, with one end of the ribbon in his hand. Rather than attempt external manifestation with a pounding headache, he synchronized himself with his power and pushed his heart into his blade.

He opened his eyes on a sunny day, and glanced at the hollow. "How'd it go?"

"Couple of hits for each of us. He'd probably still be there."

"I wouldn't be able to hold it for long. Sorry." Ichigo hesitated as the hollow looked at him in surprise, not entirely sure why he'd bothered apologizing. He decided to blame the head injury. "Can you see my memories?"

"I keep telling you, idiot. I'm a part of you. Anything you were conscious for, I can see."

"Check the ones from right after you left." With that, Ichigo sent his consciousness out, grabbed his sword, and went to find Hanataro.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ishida walked into their room carrying an armful of cloth while Ichigo rummaged shirtless through the collection of shihakusho in his size that the Fourth Division had provided. Orihime was directly behind him, but turned around with a squeak at seeing Ichigo's bare, slightly sweaty chest.

"S… sorry! I'll wait outside!"

Ishida looked at her, remembering with regret that she had no problem with changing in the same room as him, and that it had been Ishida who insisted on a private dressing space- which she had then given to him to use.

"It's fine," Ichigo called out after her, but she just shook her head while walking out the door, completely crimson. He shrugged and looked at Ishida.

"Looks like you found the crafts room all right. Nice cape."

"Thank you. We just gave Kuchiki-san a dress I made to remember us by. It was the type she used to wear a lot."

Ichigo snorted. "She borrowed most of those from my sister. I guess she likes them, though, since she kept on wearing them when she came back to Karakura."

"This one is yours." He handed Ichigo a white shirt, similar to the tight t-shirts he sometimes wore when not in school, but with a black cross across the center.

"…what brought this on?" Ichigo looked at the shirt somewhat dubiously. Ishida hadn't made any clothes for Ichigo the first time, since Ichigo had been wearing a shihakusho when they first came to Soul Society anyway. Was it because Chad was gone? The archer might have had some extra time.

Ishida paused a second, remembering the memory Ichigo had shown them two days ago.

/ "_Unacceptable," the old man on the screen said. "Your powers are necessary for this battle. I won't allow for selfish actions, or a meaningless death. Stand by for further orders."_

"_Did you listen?"_

"_Don't be stupid."_/

The shinigami had been a bit too accepting of Kurosaki's self-imposed mission, in Ishida's opinion. A visual reminder that he was not a part of their organization would be all to the good.

"Don't you like it? You'll look very manly! Like a Quincy!" He raised his thumb at Ichigo.

Ichigo rolled his eyes, but pulled the t-shirt over his head. It fit, but didn't leave much more to the imagination than his bare chest did; Ishida had been trying to recreate a shirt he had seen Ichigo wear before he had put on several more months worth of muscle, and the shihakusho that Ichigo had been wearing hadn't shown the extra bulk. "Thanks. I've been in black for months. I was getting kind of sick of it."

"Oh?" Ishida looked at him sharply, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Good. Inoue-san and I will make you some more when we make ours, then. We'll be here at least another week, right?"

"Probably, yeah. Plain is fine, though. You're the only one who thinks crosses are cool." Ichigo went to the door and slid it open to let Orihime back inside, and found that she had been joined by Yoruichi, Soi Fon, and Gin.

"Yo. What's up? I thought we weren't meeting until this afternoon."

"Ichimaru-taicho has some time this morning." Soi Fon glanced sharply at Ichigo's new outfit, but didn't comment. "We are attempting to map the general layout of Aizen's palace. If you are free, we will attempt to fit your memories to what he remembers when it was being constructed."

"Gimme a second." Ichigo went back into the room to try to find his memory projector, calling out behind him, "I needed to talk with you anyway, Gin. I was going to talk about Aizen's Arrancar tonight, but I've only seen a few of them, and that was a couple of months from now. Do you want to do it instead?"

"Sorry, kid. Ya know 'em better than I do." The smiling captain paused on the threshold, one hand on the sliding door. "I helped a bit when Las Noches was constructed, but Aizen collected his army alone, or had the other arrancar do it. He could make sure he wasn't missed, 'cause of the illusions and all, but it's harder ta have three captains gone without someone noticing."

Ichigo found the snow-globe under the black top he'd taken off after sparring and joined them outside the door, glancing at Ishida. "You guys coming?" He didn't like to admit it, but Ishida had always been better at analysis and planning than Ichigo.

"If you would like," the dark-haired boy answered, inwardly pleased to be included. The group went to an unoccupied meeting room and spent the next few hours making sure that they had a decent map of the general area, focusing on the times that Ichigo had been outside of the buildings rather than in the changeable corridors. They then made sure that Ichigo was able to orient himself in Las Noches relative to the throne room, which Gin thought Aizen was most likely to be in the general area of, before Yoruichi turned to the question of how to enter the dome.

"We bored through the wall to get in the first time." Ichigo called up the memory of himself and Renji exploding a tunnel with their swords while he chewed on the last of his lunch. "I'll just do the same thing. It won't be a problem."

Yoruichi shook her head, tapping the section of the map that outlined the gate. "Use that as a last resort. If they see holes, they'll know they've got mice. Try scouting out the gate first. You can move too fast to see, and there's a reason we're training you to move quietly. Take advantage of it if you can."

"That is your general goal, Kurosaki," Soi Fon added. "Attempt nothing that will alert Aizen to your presence. Be prepared to wait for days for the gate to open if that is what it takes. Do not destroy anything unless your mission will fail if you do not."

When Ichigo had thought of this directly after he woke up, he had pictured himself using a Getsuga Tensho to break the dome and heading for Aizen before the Espada had time to swarm him. He still kind of liked that plan; it had the virtue of simplicity. He was willing to try it their way first, though.

After discussing a few more minor parts of the general plan, like what parts of the palace he should tunnel into if the gate was impassable, they quit for the day, and Ichigo headed off with the two Onmitsukido commanders to continue training while Orihime and Ishida headed in the direction of their room.

"Hey, kid. I wanna talk to you." Gin's statement stopped Ishida before got far down the hall, and he gestured for Orihime to go on ahead as he re-entered the meeting room.

"What can I help you with, Ichimaru-taicho?"

"So polite, Ishida-kun!" The silver-haired captain tipped his head back and smiled, his eyes in their typical squint. "Your friend could use somma' that."

"Kurosaki does tend to ignore social niceties," Ishida agreed. "Finding out that he was raised by shinigami explains a great deal. And we are not _friends._"

"Not friends? He'd die for ya, kid." The smile widened fractionally. "Would you return the favor?"

Ishida narrowed his eyes and didn't answer, and Gin changed the subject abruptly. "Couldn't help but notice he ain't in uniform anymore. Your doing?"

"I have some skill with a needle, yes." Ishida looked at him, face bland. "The Fourth Division kindly provided a selection of materials and showed me where to work. We have been borrowing your clothing long enough."

"Did Kurosaki ask ya to make him something?"

"I had some free time, and he said he was tired of black."

"Did he say that before or after ya'd made it for him?"

Neither of their expressions had changed during the exchange, and their voices were perfectly polite, or at least as polite as Gin ever got. Ishida asked, "Does it matter?"

"Maybe, maybe. Means ya got some influence. Kurosaki ain't the type to use clothes to make a point. You are, though. Worried he'll forget who he is?"

"Not at all." That, at least, was completely truthful. "I'm sure you have better things to do than worry about the clothing of someone who, technically, holds no position in the Gotei Thirteen and has no reason to wear the shinigami uniform. Have a good day, Ichimaru-taicho."

"You're a weakness, kid. You and all of his little friends." Gin's cold, cutting voice stopped Ishida on the threshold of the meeting room. "He'll listen to ya, and he'd die for ya, and, human or not, he's made himself into the best chance we've got ta kill Aizen. If ya do anything ta screw that up, you'll pray for death before I'm through with ya."

Ishida did not look back at him. He remembered that the man behind him was not considered completely stable, and that he had devoted his entire life to a single purpose- killing Aizen Sosuke. He could believe that the captain would carry out his threat. "I cannot understand why Kurosaki bothered to save your life."

"Ah, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', right? And besides, when we fought, I 'wasn't taking it seriously'." Gin opened his eyes slightly. "Someone should remember to tell the kid that any fight where a captain enters the final release is a serious one."

"He forgives too easily." Ishida finally glanced back coldly to meet Gin's pale blue eyes. "The shinigami destroyed my people because they feared our power. If you threaten Inoue-san as you did me, I will erase your soul from existence."

"So harsh!" Gin walked past him, eyes once more hidden behind his eyelids. He patted Ishida's shoulder as he went out the door. "I was just kidding."

Ishida tightened his lips, and then went abruptly in the opposite direction from his room. He had a wardrobe to begin.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo stood in the center of the First Divison's main meeting room between the double lines formed by the captains and the vice captains. Ikkaku and Yumichika had joined Kenpachi and Yachiru this time; Ishida and Orihime were at the back of the room with Yoruichi, as usual, and Kenpachi had probably figured that a couple of extra men wouldn't make much of a difference. Especially since everyone knew that the third and fifth seats did most of the paperwork anyway.

Ichigo was as uncomfortable tonight as he had been the previous night, but for a different reason. Then, he had just been going to show a sequence of events that he hadn't particularly wanted to relive. Tonight, he would be actually _lecturing_ about Aizen's army to nearly thirty people, most of whom had been shinigami for longer than he had been alive. There was also a fair amount of stuff he didn't really want to show; there was no way he'd be replaying the conversations where Kenpachi and Byakuya told him to go home like a misbehaving child. He sighed and began, wishing that Gin had been able to do this.

"I'm just gonna be talking about Aizen's army tonight. Feel free to stop me if you've got questions." He paused a second, then continued when no-one spoke. "He's been using his own version of the Hogyoku to make arrancar out of the stronger hollows. I don't know for how long."

"We took the area that formed Las Noches just after I became a captain. The Vasto Lord that originally claimed the place was one of the first he used the Hogyoku on after he finished it about twenty years ago," Gin interjected. "He'd been collecting natural arrancar for a while before that, once he had a place to put them."

Ichigo nodded at him in thanks. "The army is divided into Numeros and Espada. The Numeros are numbered in the order they were made. Toshiro said the ones they fought were either Gillians or Adjudas before they broke their masks."

"How strong are they?" Kenpachi asked.

Ichigo paused, searching his memory for a representative fight, and coming up blank. "I… actually never fought one," he admitted. He concentrated, and the high-ceilinged meeting room in the first division changed to a street in his hometown. "This was at the second attack on Karakura…"

"Second?" Byakuya interjected.

"There were small attacks to test the defenses. Three or four, before the big one I showed last night. After the first one you stationed a team in the town."

"Who was on the team, Kurosaki?" Hitsugaya could guess who had led it; the human had seemed more familiar with him than with the other captains, and an extended mission to the human world was the sort of thing that was generally dumped onto the most junior captain. The only question was whether they'd actually given him backup.

"You were in charge, and you took Matsumoto, Renji, Ikkaku, Yumichika, and Rukia with you," Ichigo answered. Hitsugaya nodded, satisfied. They'd let him take two of the strongest fighters in the Eleventh, and Abarai had achieved Bankai already. That wasn't bad for a place that already had several captain-class shinigami living there. He had probably chosen to include an unseated officer because of her familiarity with the terrain and the humans they would be working with.

The surroundings shifted back to the darkened street. "Rukia was able to take one out before he went into his Resurreccion-"

"Resurreccion?" Ise Nanao asked.

"Sort of their version of Bankai, except they can all do it. They go into a more hollow-like form and get more powerful." He let the scene play through Di Roy's destruction.

"Why is she not a seated officer?" Komamura was standing next to Ukitake, and addressed the question to him as quietly as his massive frame would allow.

"Other factors have delayed her promotion. After that display, though, I'm not sure I can avoid it." He glanced to the captain on his other side while speaking. Byakuya's only reaction was a minute tightening of his lips.

"There were four others, not including the guy who was leading them. All four went into Resurreccion. Everyone else won their fights, but you had to get rid of the power limiters and everyone who had a Bankai used it."

Completely coincidentally, his eyes met Ikkaku's while he was speaking the last words, and the third seat arrived at the incorrect answer to a question he'd been wondering about ever since he had heard about the journey through time. He nodded grimly back at Ichigo, who blinked at him in confusion.

"Does everyone agree, then, that their expendable foot soldiers are at least comparable in power to our vice-captains?" Soi Fon addressed the question to the room rather than to Ichigo.

"It would explain why only our highest officers were fighting last night," Shunsui murmured. Battles at their level were battles of champions; if a hundred unseated shinigami led by a seventh seat attacked a captain-class opponent, the death toll would be one hundred and one and their opponent would walk away unscathed.

"Continue, Kurosaki," Yamamoto ordered.

"The Espada are the leaders, and are ranked based on strength. If someone stronger comes along, they can get kicked out. The Privarion Espada still follow Aizen, but I never saw any outside of Hueco Mundo." Their surroundings shifted the hall he'd met Don Panini in, and he moved quickly through the first part of their fight, without any dialog, simply to give everyone some idea of his general capabilities and level of power.

"Who's the kid?" Iba asked, as three successive shifts in their surroundings showed Nel standing in front of Ichigo swallowing a Cero, her shooting it back at him, and Dordonii's attack on the little girl, finally forcing Ichigo into Bankai. He left the his illusory self in place holding Nel protectively in his left arm, his Bankai coat frozen while swirling around them both, while he considered how to answer the question. He wanted them to not see her as an enemy.

"Nel Tu. We met her in the desert." The white hall shifted to a darkened desert with three hollows chasing after a little girl. Ishida, Chad, and Ichigo stepped in to save her, only to be cut off by the child's wail.

The captains who had made the connection to the name from their first observations were now very, very disturbed by the apparent preferences of Ichigo's hollow. Kenpachi in particular, with Yachiru riding on his shoulder, was making plans for the next time they fought.

/ _"We're really sorry about the trouble! I never thought that our game of endless tag would make people think the wrong thing! The thing ith, in Hueco Mundo, there aren't that many fun things to do!"_

"_Tag?" The illusory Ichigo, sitting on the sand, looked at her skeptically. "Weren't you crying a little out there?"_

"_Yup! Nel is a huge masochist! Ith no fun if I don't cry while being chased!"_

_Ichigo beat the closest hollow on the head. "Just what the hell are you teaching this kid?"_/

"They gave us a ride to Las Noches." The images, with Rukia and Renji now included, were riding on a giant eel-like hollow with Nel cheerfully sitting in Ichigo's lap. "She followed me when we went into the dome."

"You let a kid tag along?" Renji raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't let her, I just couldn't make her leave. And besides, she'd lost the other two, and the kid couldn't wander around alone." As he was speaking, the scene shifted to Nel running after him in the white hallway and barreling into him, and then to an extremely disgruntled-looking Ichigo giving the delighted arrancar a ride on his shoulders. Ichigo cut the projection off, beet red, accompanied by muffled snickers from half the room.

"Anyway. The Espada are numbered from one to ten or zero to nine, depending on whether-"

"Hey, finish the fight, Ichigo!"

Ichigo looked over at Ikkaku, bemused. "Eh? He didn't do anything different. It didn't last much longer."

"Good, then you can stop skipping stuff."

Ichigo glanced at Yamamoto, hoping he would want to get on with it, but the old man just nodded at him. Ichigo sighed and raised the projector. This was going to take all night if he did this with every fight. He started with Dordonii's first attack after Ichigo went into Bankai, deciding not to include his apology to Nel for not going into Bankai immediately. His image was stopping the attacks without much difficulty, but did not retaliate until the gentleman turned to attacking the little girl still in his arms.

/ _"Don't you have any shame?"_

"_The shame is that my opponent is not fighting me at full strength!" _/

The illusory Nel went through Ichigo's legs as his image told the girl to stand back a bit. Ichigo couldn't see his own face, but the captains to his front noticed that he was calm and completely confident. With a pull, his mask was on his face, and Dordonii went down with a single swing of the sword. The image pulled off the mask.

/ _"I told you. You would only see it for an instant." _/

Ichigo ended the projection without showing what had come afterwards; he still wasn't sure why the old Don had attacked him when he'd woken up. There had been no killing intent behind that last strike.

"There were at least two other ex-Espada in the area; I could feel Ishida and Chad fighting them. I don't know how long the Espada I met had held their rank, so some of this stuff may not be right yet."

The image changed to Ichigo standing in front of Orihime, protecting her against a craggy giant, and then to Yoruichi batting him around like a cat with a mouse. "Yammy. Either number ten or number zero. For the Espada, the lower the number, the more powerful they are. He's not very tough unless he's in Resurreccion."

The scene shifted to a sunny desert and the same arrancar, now a hundred times bigger and with many more legs. Ichigo's image, with his Bankai coat now very tattered, blocked the punch aimed for Rukia and got them both out of there. Ichigo skipped the conversation with Rukia and showed himself dancing around the titanic Espada's blows until he had led him away from where Renji and Chad lay in the sand. As the image pulled on his mask and fired the same strike that had felled Dordonii instantly, Ichigo paused the scene.

He stepped to the side of his image, leaving his hand in the same position, to get a look at the mask that had felt so much heavier at the time of the fight. He nodded slightly- it was the same mask that he'd had after the first conversation with the hollow and Zangetsu in this timeline, with very different markings from the red-slashed mask he'd seen in mirrors at the Vizard's warehouse.

"Your mask changed," Yoruichi noted, frowning. She'd circled around the lines of captains to be able to see Ichigo's face.

"I had hollowified completely right before this. My mask was weird that entire fight."

Yammy displayed the power difference between him and Don Panini as he got up and shrugged off Ichigo's most powerful technique, and started firing Balas at Ichigo while boasting about his power. Ichigo again flashed through much of the scene, and only slowed down to real-time when his double tried to pull on his mask, and failed. In his shock, Yammy managed to grab him, and was beginning to crush him when an unexpected voice intervened.

/ _"Hado 33. Sokatsu."_ /

Everyone looked down at the floor, and saw Kuchiki Byakuya with his hand extended far below them. Ichigo cut the scene off there, and looked over at him. "You and Kenpachi took over the fight and led him away while Mayuri and Nemu opened a Garganta back to Karakura. I didn't see much of it. This was about an hour before the stuff I showed yesterday."

"Was the ineffective strike the strongest attack you have?" Soi Fon asked, attempting to get an accurate gauge of the greatest strength of the Espada.

"It was the best I could do then, but I was pretty weak from the fights before that. It would have been about twice as strong if I'd been fresh."

Renji, standing behind Byakuya's right shoulder, let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like 'bullshit'.

"Bite me. The coat's a part of the bankai. The less there is of it, the less power I've got. Unohana restored my reiatsu on the way through the Garganta before the fight with Aizen." He looked at Yamamoto. "Can I keep going?"

The old man nodded. Ichigo turned slightly towards the left side of the room, away from Ukitake's spot in the line to his right. He didn't want to be looking at the white-haired captain when discussing this; some gesture or turn of phrase might tell more than he wanted to.

"I never met the weakest three, and don't know much about them. Rukia took down the Ninth espada. She said it was the only Gillian in the top ten, and that he'd stayed in the Espada because he was able to use any power the hollows he ate used to have." He took a breath, running his hand through his hair. "He was able to do that for any of the shinigami that the hollows he'd eaten had merged with, too, and he was a shapeshifter. If you ever meet anyone you thought was dead wandering around in Hueco Mundo, you might wanna check for that…"

Out of Ichigo's field of vision, Ukitake paled, his hand coming to rest on Sogyo no Kotowari. This was worse than he'd imagined, when wondering why Ichigo had referred to Kaien five days ago. How was it _possible?_ Rukia had killed the hollow that devoured him, Kaien should be at _peace_! It took every fraction of the control that Jushiro had developed over centuries of leadership to prevent himself from shaking the boy until he gave out the information he was withholding.

Slowly he calmed himself, conscious of the glances from his commanding officer and closest friends, as Ichigo continued. He realized that the feelings he had were probably similar to what Rukia had felt, if she had confronted the shade of her dead mentor as he imagined she had; fury and determination might have propelled her to victory against an opponent who was likely far stronger. He really would have to promote her soon, her brother be damned…

Ichigo had paused for a second, his frown deepening, before continuing the thought "…except for this guy. Ashida something, I never got the rest of his name. He's been stuck in Hueco Mundo for centuries fighting the Menos. I don't know how he got there or what squad he was with. I'll pick him up before I leave Hueco Mundo if I can, or head back to get him afterwards." Their surroundings shifted to the Forest of Menos and a youthful red-haired shinigami.

"If he was in the Eighth, I don't recognize him," Shunsui said, looking at the distinctive hair.

"Nor the Thirteenth," Ukitake added, having collected himself enough to contribute to the conversation. Yamamoto and Unohana just shook their heads.

"I don't know anything about the Octava Espada except that he was a scientist. Mayuri killed him, looted his lab, and used his stuff to make a stable Garganta."

"Did you see the construction?" Mayuri didn't care about most of the future events that they had seen over the past few evenings; they had very llttle to do with him. This was the first time today that the half-shinigami had said something that caught his interest; the possibilities provided by the laboratory of an arrancar scientist were staggering. He might have to make a trip to Hueco Mundo after the crisis was past.

"Yeah, I can swing by tomorrow and show what you did. Kuchiki Byakuya took the seventh Espada down. Rukia said that Hanataro said that in his Resurreccion the Espada was able to control the parts of the body that he'd hit with some special technique, but she was unconscious for that fight and didn't see any of it, so I don't know anything else." Ichigo sighed and raised the projector again. Four down.

"The Sexta Espada, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez." They were now in the same street he had shown earlier.

"He led the second attack on Karakura. That one wasn't authorized, but he was kicking my ass until Tosen came to get him back." The scene showed Ichigo, much the worse for wear, staring up at a blue-haired arrancar and the former captain of the Ninth.

"He was also in the third attack, and we fought until my mask broke. Shinji took over until Ulquiorra stopped the fight." Mindful of the Vizard's request, he didn't show any images of the second fight.

"Ulquiorra?" The question came from Iba this time.

"Number four. I'll get to him soon," Ichigo answered. "Our fights had always been interrupted, and he wanted to finish it, so after I'd been badly wounded in Hueco Mundo he brought Inoue. She healed us both, and we finished the fight..."

"An _arrancar_ had you healed?" Soi Fon asked sharply.

Ichigo shrugged in reply. 'Why do I tell thee of my foes, which art my nearest and dearest enemy… ' He would have done, _had _done, the same thing for Grimmjow.

"He was kinda psychotic, but he had some honor."

The scene shifted to Grimmjow boasting about the power of the Gran Rey Cero of the Espadas and sending a blue cero at Ichigo's image. It looked in alarm at Orihime and Nel, far above him and directly in the path of the cero if he dodged. Unable to move, the illusion hollowified to block the attack as Orihime looked on in horror.

/ _"It's about damn time." _/

Ichigo glanced back, seeing once again the fear that she'd originally held. It made a startling contrast to the expression of curiosity that the true girl had. Orihime had come around to her double's front, looking at the expression on her face and the white outfit she was wearing. She'd seen him at his worst already; Ichigo wasn't too worried about anything she'd see in this fight. He skipped a couple of minutes forward, and the captains saw an arrancar enter Resurreccion for the first time.

/ _"Grind, Pantera!"_

"_Inoue. Use your Santen Kesshun to guard yourself and Nel from now on. Don't let it down, even for a second._/

He paused the projection as Grimmjow's vaguely catlike released form appeared from the dust. "He got stronger and faster, and could fire these weird explosive darts from his elbows and wrists…" but as he shifted their surroundings to Grimmjow demonstrating the effects of his darts, _Unohana_ of all people interrupted.

"If we are to make an accurate assessment of his power, Kurosaki-san, we need to see him fighting."

Ichigo sighed, but didn't even bother checking with the captain commander. He went back to the image of the armored Espada, and they saw the effects of the sound waves from his roar. The fight began with Ichigo being tossed through several buildings, and the observers were actually standing inside of the illusory stone for brief seconds as he passed through them. After he was smashed down into a wide white structure, they were surrounded by blackness. After a moment, they heard a voice calling down.

/ _"What's the matter? You've got more fight in you than that. Get out here."_

"_Getsuga Tensho!"_ /

As he was speaking, Ichigo flashed out of the rubble behind him and fired at his back, and the battle was truly joined. The surroundings moved around them at incredible speeds as the two fighters clashed repeatedly in midair, and more than one of the watching Shinigami had to close their eyes to recover their equilibrium. Omeada was the first to break, running through the enormous double doors at a pace no-one had considered the portly man capable of with one hand at his mouth and the other at his stomach.

Ichigo paused the projection and looked after him. "Is he OK?"

"I suspect he overindulged at dinner." Soi Fon sent a contemptuous glance at the doors her subordinate had disappeared through. "Continue, Kurosaki."

The fight continued until Grimmjow fired the darts that Ichigo had mentioned. Ichigo's image dodged all five of them merely by shifting his head, then froze as he realized that Orihime and Nel were directly in their path. In an instant, he was in front of them, and all five missiles impacted squarely on his back. A cough of blood coming from his mouth suggested that he had internal injuries, but he reassured them of his health anyway. He and Orihime locked gazes, fear still evident on her face, and without another word he returned to the fight.

/ _"You went to save them? Well, wasn't that nice of you."_

_The masked fighter did not reply, just continued to breath heavily._

"_What's the matter? You're out of breath."_

"_If you've got enough time to run your mouth, use it to worry about yourself."_

_The blue-haired fighter snorted. "Don't give me that bullshit." He raised his elbow, and fired a single missile at the building behind him. He glanced back as the impact broke it into rubble. "You got hit by five of those. There's no way you'd still be OK."_

_The mask on his opponent's face began to crack._

"_Looks like your mask's hit its limit, too."_

"_Limit?" Ichigo ripped his left hand across his face once more, repairing the mask completely. "Not even close." _/

As the fight continued, with Ichigo's image clearly taking more hits than Grimmjow's, several of the other vice-captains had to turn around and lean up against the wall with their eyes closed, although none needed to run for the facilities like the shamefaced Omeada, who had returned as Ichigo's image intercepted the missiles. The captains were holding onto their stomachs through sheer stubbornness and pride. The titanic fight paused as the illusion was once more thrown into the pillar with Inoue and Nel at the top, and Grimmjow's image watched as he climbed to his feet once more, gasping for breath, with just a quarter of his mask remaining.

/ _"It's over, Kurosaki."_

"_Don't die." The whisper from the top of the pillar should not have been audible at the bottom, but Ichigo's eyes widened anyway. Orihime's volume increased until she was screaming. "Don't die, Kurosaki-kun! You don't have to win! You don't have to keep trying! Just don't get hurt anymore, please!"_

_Grimmjow charged in for one final blow. Ichigo caught it in one hand without even looking at him, then turned his head with a smile._

"_Sorry, Grimmjow. I can't afford to take any more injuries." _/

With a single slash, Grimmjow's image was brought to its knees, and the observers relaxed. Ishida looked at Orihime, who was now looking at the orange-haired teen in front of her with her heart in her eyes. She had never gotten over him, then. And after _that_, he still hadn't noticed.

"Moron."

"What did you say, Ishida-kun?"

"Never mind."

His attention was brought abruptly back to the center of the room as Grimmjow recovered and stabbed his clawed hand into Ichigo's chest, and the fight was rejoined.

/_ "I'm sick of it!"_

"_Sick of what? Being treated as an equal by a mere human?"_ /

The fight and the conversation continued, and the sky inside of the meeting room darkened as Grimmjow called up Desgarron, acknowledging it as his greatest technique. Ichigo's image blocked it, was pushed back as the claws of energy increased in size, and finally slashed through the largest, following it up to the origin and stabbing Grimmjow.

The arrancar finally fell for good, and Ichigo caught his wrist on the way down as the last fragment of his mask shattered.

Ichigo let the projection continue, without skipping anything, as his image hoisted Orihime over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and Nel bit him for not treating her as a lady, prompting laughter throughout the room. He wasn't particularly eager to get to the next part.

Grimmjow made a pitiable figure, as he fell out of his Resurreccion and attempted to attack anyway. The teenager stopped his sword effortlessly with one hand on his wrist, even though he was only slightly better off than the blue-haired arrancar. As the Espada attempted one final attack, though, he was intercepted by a new weapon.

The observers looked to the back of the right-hand line in shock.

/ _"Damn, you're a sore loser. Just die already. He's mine now."_ /

"The fifth espada. Nnoitra."

Their fight began when Nnoitra attacked Grimmjow one more time, and Ichigo stepped in to block the blow.

"Is this a habit, Kurosaki?" Soi Fon decided that she had been absolutely correct in informing Ichigo that he would never be a true part of the Onmitsukido. If he didn't let one enemy finish another off, he would never have the focus needed to do the same for a friend.

/ _"You got the crap beaten out of you before you finally managed to beat this scum over there, and I'm stronger than him. You're dead."_ /

Nnoitra's analysis of the situation proved devastatingly accurate, as he batted Ichigo around with ease before his attention was drawn by the little arrancar off to the side of the battle.

/ _"Judging from the look on your face, you must have been lugging her around without knowing what she really is."_

"_What… what do you mean?"_

"_She's Nel. Neliel Tu Oderschvank. A former Espada."_/

There was a shocked silence, both in the projection and outside of it.

"You did that deliberately," Hitsugaya finally stated flatly, his eyes narrowed.

"She's not my enemy. Never will be. You needed to see why."'

The baby arrancar in the projection denied the accusation and the ones following, wailing that she'd never lied to any of them and that she'd just wanted to be with Ichigo. As Nnoitra attacked her, each attempt was met by Ichigo, who got beaten down over and over and kept rising again until most of the observers were praying that he would _stop_, that he would fall into unconsciousness as he should have done long ago. Finally, Nnoitra was annoyed enough to turn his attention fully to Ichigo, and the real teenager listened expressionlessly to his former self's screams of pain as Nnoitra brutally beat him down and grabbed an arm, trying to break it off at the wrist. The projection of the terrified child behind him screamed his name, and Ichigo turned to look at her as the surroundings exploded . A form appeared in the dust, which cleared to reveal a beautiful, scantily clad green-haired woman.

Kenpachi snorted and relaxed, relieved that the most enthusiastic fighter he'd met recently wasn't a pedophile. The surroundings around them blurred as Ichigo's downed image was removed from the battlefield. Ichigo went beet red as his image, which surrounded the projector in his outstretched hand, was cradled gently in the arms of the same woman he'd carried on his shoulders.

/ _"Please stay here a moment. I want to thank you."/_

"Damn, kid. Not bad!" Yoruichi called out cheerfully. To her delight, Ichigo blushed even harder.

"Shut up. She's a little girl. It's not what it looks like."

"A little girl that hot could thank me any way she wants…" The anonymous mutter trailed off as the breeze revealed the number on her back, clearly visible to everyone in the room but Yamamoto, who was facing Nel.

"The former third espada. Neliel Tu Oderschvank," Ichigo stated, looking at him. His eyes were calm and contained no regret about fraternizing with the enemy. The Soutaicho gave a 'hmph' and declined to make an issue about it.

They watched the fight as Nel completely overpowered the Quinta Espada, finally finishing it by swallowing Nnoitra's golden cero and sending it back at him with her own included. As his subordinate rushed over to him, freeing Orihime's image, she rushed to Ichigo's side to heal him, but paused at Nel's delighted shriek.

/ _"Ichigo!"_/

Ichigo abruptly cut off the projection upon hearing his own yell of pain at the enthusiastic embrace, his blush coming back. Behind their respective captains, Renji, Matsumoto, and Ikkaku were cracking up. At Byakuya's disdainful glance, Renji got himself under control, but couldn't resist choking out, "Popular with the ladies, Ichigo?"

"Kiss my ass," Ichigo muttered again. He funneled his reiatsu into the snow-globe again. "It wasn't over."

/ _"Just how many years to you think it's been since you left this place? Don't think the Espada's power levels stayed the same the whole time, Neliel! That number on your back doesn't mean a damn thing anymore!"_/

The fight began again, and it was clear Nnoitra had gotten a second wind. No major injuries had been taken by either fighter, but Nnoitra's image was pressing Nel hard, and she finally went into Resurreccion.

/ _"Declare, Gazmusa!"_ /

The armored goat-woman sent a final attack at Nnoitra, who collapsed against a nearby piece of rubble. She held her lance at his throat.

/ _"I'm not going to kill you._" /

Her final strike was aimed at his mask, possibly to shatter it as he had once done to hers- only to halt as she changed back into her childlike form and rose up, confused. Nnoitra started laughing and kicked her away. Ichigo tried one final time to save her, and was smashed into the ground. Nnoitra didn't even bother killing him, and gave the job to Tesla, who entered Resurreccion and picked Ichigo up.

Deciding that everyone had seen him get kicked around enough, Ichigo skipped forward to where Tesla threw him down and punched his fist down.

"Show the fight, Ichigo!" Renji called out.

"There wasn't one." Ichigo continued the projection as Renji winced. The final blow was unexpectedly blocked by Kenpachi Zarakai.

"It's about damn time," Kenpachi smirked, as Yachiru sqealed with glee. Tesla was sliced apart almost instantly, and the illusory captain turned to look at Nnoitra.

/ _"Next."_/

Ichigo let the projection run without skipping the embarrassing bits, including the part where Kenpachi (literally) kicked him out of the fight and Yachiru smashed his head down to keep him there. The bastard had saved his life; the least he could do was show him doing so. He was actually glad that the focus was finally away from him as the observers followed the fight some distance away. Ikkaku, Yumichika, and Yachiru moved around the lines of the captains to get a better view, and Renji and Iba looked like they wanted to join them.

When Ichigo's image told Orihime to heal Nel first, Ichigo only got a couple of amused glances before they turned back to Kenpachi's loss of the eyepatch and Nnoitra's Resurreccion. Only Orihime's attention was on their end of the room, as her double healed Nel and put a healing barrier around Ichigo, then sent her shield to protect Yachiru when it seemed that Kenpachi had fallen. Yamamoto snorted at Kenpachi's description of the kendo lessons he had forced him to take, and the real Kenpachi scratched his head, bells jingling, before deciding to be glad that the class hadn't been a _complete_ waste of time. Nnoitra fell, and Kenpachi walked away leaving him alive, until he made one final desperate attack and Kenpachi finished the job. Ichigo cut off the projection as Kenpachi walked back towards him, discarding his tattered captain's haori.

Upon seeing that, Yamamoto's section of the room became noticeable warmer. "In the future, Kenpachi-taicho, _do not throw away your haori_."

"Ain't done it yet," the captain muttered. "Good fight. I'll have to go find him sometime."

Ichigo grimaced as the focus of the room turned back to him. At least this was the last one.

"The Cuarta Espada. Ulquiorra Cifer." Ichigo wanted this to be over, and simply started the projection of their last fight after Orihime had shielded him, without any further introduction. The captains who had not seen Ichigo's projection of Ulquiorra's death focused their attention completely on the scene, as Ichigo's double frantically attempted to get past the pale arrancar to reach Orihime, who was being tormented by two female Arrancar. The scene got stranger as Yammy arrived and squished them both and as Ishida showed up and exploded the floor out from underneath him.

"An anti-arrancar mine, hmm?" Mayuri mused, his interest caught once again.

"You didn't show that part the first time, Kurosaki," Ishida called out. Ichigo shrugged, still silent. His image hollowified and pursued Ulquiorra through the roof of Las Noches, and Ulquiorra finally used his Resurreccion. Everyone watched grimly as, once again, Ichigo was completely beaten down, but still refused to surrender. Ulquiorra's image got just as frustrated as the audience did.

/ _"You have never seen the form of true despair. Allow me to educate you. Resurreccion. Segunda Etapa." _ /

"What rank should he have held, Kurosaki?" Byakuya asked, coming directly to the point.

"Cero."

Ichigo's image still fought back, but Ulquiorra dominated the fight even more completely than he already had been, and the projection finally went dark. Ichigo's voice was flat as he spoke. "He could also regenerate and fire an energy spear, but he couldn't aim it that well."

"Whoa, what happened then?" Matsumoto asked.

"I killed him."

"Show it!"

Ichigo glanced at her calmly, and she faltered.

"No."

"There are three remaining, Kurosaki." Yamamoto would not make the boy show his darkest side again. There was no reason too; everyone who needed to know about the fight knew.

"I don't know anything about them. Except that this guy was probably one; he felt stronger than Grimmjow or Nnoitra." The scene shifted back to a familiar desert, with Orihime and Kenpachi standing nearby.

/ _"Woman. Heal me."_

"_Right!" As the white-clad girl ran to him, though, she was intercepted by a brown-haired arrancar in a boom of sonido._

"_Forgive me. Truth be told, I abhor such tactics, but I don't have any say in the matter."_

_As both black clad shinigami attacked, the two disappeared._ /

"That must have been frustrating," Shunshi murmured.

"You have no idea."

"That was probably the Primera." Gin had been silently watching for most of the presentation, but finally raised his own projector. The surroundings shifted to a slightly transparent scene of the Hueco Mundo desert and a skeleton arrancar on a tall throne. "This is Luisenbarn Baraggan, the self-proclaimed King of Las Noches."

Ichigo finally left the center of the room and joined Ishida, Orihime, and Yoruichi at the back. The dark-skinned woman clapped him gently on the shoulder, and he nodded once in thanks. In front of them, they watched Aizen's simple takeover of what passed for prime real estate in the Hollow dimension. Gin finished the projection after the Vasto Lord's agreement to serve Aizen.

"After Aizen made the Hogyoku he took over as the Primera for a while. Aizen mentioned once that he'd found someone stronger and that Luisenbarn had been moved down to Segunda. I think that the Espada Tres is another woman, so that guy must have been the new Primera."

"Is there anything else about the Espada you would care to add, Ichimaru-taicho?" Ukitake asked. The silver-haired captain just shook his head, wide grin in place.

As the meeting was dismissed, Ichigo didn't need Yamamoto's request to stay behind; he was becoming more used to the routine. This time, he asked Ishida and Orihime to wait for him.

"I'm not in the mood tonight, jii-san."

Yamamoto opened his eyes slightly and looked at the boy. Deciding that any discussion of tactics tonight would not be remembered anyway, he nodded curtly. "Very well. We will discuss these battles tomorrow."

"Sure. Good night." Ichigo turned towards the massive double doors.

"Kurosaki, is there anything you will need to show me that you do not believe all of the forces need to see?" Yamamoto had looked at Soi Fon's report on the background check of her subordinate Amagai, and there were some anomalies that he was hoping Kurosaki would be able to clear up.

Ichigo paused. "Yeah, how'd you know? The guy you got to replace Gin committed seppuku. You'd be able to stop it. He might not want everyone to know about it, though."

That was far from the answer Yamamoto had been expecting. "Plan on coming early to explain those events, then. The meeting will be delayed an hour."

Ichigo nodded again and opened the doors, showing that his friends had waited for him in the hall. Yamamoto's voice once again stopped him before he could leave the room completely.

"Kurosaki. When you report, do so in uniform."

Ichigo rolled his eyes as Ishida's narrowed, but the orange-haired boy nodded before the door shut for good.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

The next day, Ichigo was making his bed after breakfast while chatting with Ishida and Orihime. He was planning to go to Urahara's old training ground that morning to attempt to hollowify. To cut himself off from access to much of his powers as a shinigami, he had already manifested his sword, who had promptly disappeared again to attempt to find Muramasa's spirit ribbon in the outer districts of the Rukongai. It was similar to finding a needle in a haystack, but Zangetsu-no-ossan had seemed confident that he would be able to find him if he got within range; it was just a matter of covering enough ground. They all glanced up as Rukia slid the door open and joined them, and they spent several minutes talking over the past day before Ichigo asked her why she was in the Fourth Division.

"Ukitake-taicho is here for the day, and I came for his signature on several papers."

"He is?" Ichigo frowned. "That's weird. The first time, we left this morning, and he was fine. Maybe the fight made him worse?"

Rukia shook her head. "Unlikely. He said he merely did not sleep well last night. This time, it is not serious; the healers will fix him and he will be fine tomorrow."

"What's wrong with Ukitake-san?" Orihime had not spent a great deal of time with the captain of the Thirteenth, but had liked him when she met him just after waking up.

"Something in his lungs that Unohana can't heal," Ichigo told her. "He coughs up blood a lot."

"Tuberculosis?" Ishida asked curiously.

"Can't be, he still had it months from now," Ichigo answered, pulling his red chain around his torso.

"He is consumptive." Rukia handed Ichigo his sword from where it rested next to her against the wall, hissing slightly at the weight.

All three humans looked at her in confusion. Orihime glanced at Ishida. "I thought they were the same thing."

"They are. Strange, if he's had it for that long."

"He has been sick for as long as I have served under him. It occasionally causes problems in battle, because the attacks do not come at regular intervals." Rukia remembered a rainy night, with her captain coughing up blood next to her, with herself the only one capable of destroying the monster, with her beautiful white sword stained with the blood of a dear mentor… she shook herself out of the memories and glanced at Ichigo, who had just answered Ishida. "What was that?"

"I said, 'I guess antibiotics don't work on dead guys'. Too bad."

Rukia frowned. "What are antibiotics?"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Unohana Retsu looked up, startled, as Kuchiki Rukia burst through the open door to her office, dragging Ichigo and Ishida by the collars of their white shirts as Orihime trailed after them in alarm.

"TELL HER!" The petite shinigami shoved both humans in front of Unohana's desk and stepped back, panting.

"Kuchiki-san, what is the meaning of this?" Unohana's voice was not sending chills down her spine; Rukia took that as a good sign.

"The humans found a cure!"

Unohana looked at the three teenagers. "A cure for what?"

Ishida stepped forward. "Pardon, Unohana-san, but were you aware that tuberculosis is treatable?"

"I have seen the human treatments, Ishida-san," she answered, gently, but with a bitter tone in her voice, "and the shinigami do not pray to anyone."

Ishida looked at her in mild shock. "How old are you?"

Rukia promptly smacked him. "You don't ask a lady that!"

"Excuse me." The archer rubbed his head, wincing. "Allow me to phrase that differently. Do you know what bacteria are?"

"A type of animal, I believe. Why does this matter?"

"Not animals, but…" Ishida sighed, deciding to leave the Linnaeus classification alone. "They are small. So small that they cannot be seen, and they are everywhere in the living world. Some are helpful, some are neutral, and some are harmful. Tuberculosis is caused by one of the harmful types. The bacteria invade through the lungs and start feeding on them, and eventually spread to the rest of the body. To cure the disease, you have to kill the bacteria."

Unohana had been listening with mild interest that became a dawning horror. She was the finest healer in Soul Society, and her agile mind compared the progression of the disease of one of her oldest friends with the information she had just been given. Finally she closed her eyes and murmured, "Tiny animals that need to be killed. Healing kido can only heal. We treat the effects, but not the cause."

They had healed the lacerations on his lungs, over and over again through the centuries. They had fixed the damage in the rest of his body as the disease spread to his other organs, slowly but surely, although the lungs had always been the worst, requiring healing far more often than any other problem. And Ukitake had lived with the knowledge that, once it reached the brain, he would slowly start to lose himself, as the damage to his memories and functions accumulated despite everything the healers could do.

She sighed, wondering if the healing kido had also improved the health of the parasites in his lungs. "How can humans kill animals they cannot see? Except for your own race, young Quincy, they have never been very successful at that."

Ichigo answered this time. "Poison. We have medicines that poison the bacteria and not the person taking it. I don't know what the ones for tuberculosis are, but my dad would."

"They change from time to time as the bacteria develop resistance," Ishida added. "Levofloxacin or streptomycin for the antibiotic resistant strains, but streptomycin is more expensive."

Ichigo and Orihime just looked at him.

Ishida coughed uncomfortably, adjusting his glasses. "… 'House' did an episode on it."

"… you watch that show? What, does he remind you of your dad?"

"That has _nothing_ to do with this, Kurosaki. My father and I ignore each other as much as possible."

"Do you want to be a doctor like your father, Ishida-kun?" Orihime asked curiously.

"Kurosaki-san," Unohana interjected, changing the subject to Ishida's relief, "did you say your father would have more information?"

"Yeah, we don't see that at the clinic, but he reads the journals and stuff. He'd know more about how to treat it."

There was another long pause. "Shiba Isshin became a _healer_?"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Yoruichi had at first flat-out refused to bring Isshin any way of communicating with the Seireitei. The Vizard's warehouse was under complete lockdown, and nothing but Urahara's secure transmissions had passed in or out since Ichigo's family had arrived. Unohana could not go to Urahara's shop every time she needed to consult, however, and was at her most persuasive when convincing the Shihoin princess to change her mind. Yoruichi finally agreed, on the condition that they used Urahara's equipment so that the Vizards could be sure that there were no tracking devices implanted. The arrangements were made, and as Yoruichi waited outside in her cat form with Isshin's new cell phone in her mouth, Hachi's barrier came down for the first time in eight days.

As Isshin and Unohana discussed reference materials and possible methods of treatment, Yoruichi wandered down to the training room in the warehouse. She found a masked Kensei fighting Chad, while Shinji watched from next to a rock. When wandering over there, she found that Isshin's two daughters had found shelter behind it.

Karen looked at her. "Yuzu, dad's guest is here. You're… Yoruichi?"

"That's right. What are you two doing?"

"I'm learning to see." Yuzu looked at her, concentrating. "Do you have purple hair?"

"Yes, she does." Shinji grinned down at her. "You're getting better, kid."

Yuzu looked up at him. The only part of him she could see with any reliability was his teeth and blond hair, and she had privately dubbed him 'the Cheshire Cat'.

Their attention was drawn back to the fight, as Kensei effortlessly tossed Chad across half of the training grounds. The hollow reiatsu was thick in the room as he struggled to his knees.

"Are you finished, Sado Yasutora?"

In response, the young giant surged to his feet, shooting an energy bolt at his opponent. "El Directo!"

As the fight began again, Yoruichi glanced at Shinji. "How are you doing?"

"We're trying to make new plans. 'S annoying. A hundred years of knowing that he didn't know anything about my sword, gone in an instant." He turned to grin at her. "We're not gonna count on this kid for everything."

"The Seireitei is also beginning to lay contingency plans. The information Ichigo is providing will be invaluable." She met his gaze. "Have you considered coordinating with them?"

Shinji snorted and didn't reply. Yoruichi just shook her head, and settled down to watch the fight.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

"MEGA DADDY LOVE HUG!" Yoruichi smiled later that evening as she heard Isshin attempt to say goodnight to his daughters. From the sounds coming from inside the room, Karin was doing a superlative job taking her brothers' place in abusing their father.

Half an hour later, she wandered by the room again and was surprised to see the door still open and Isshin still there, quietly watching his daughters sleep in their shared bed. He nodded to her as she stopped to lean on the doorframe.

"What's up?"

Isshin had a contemplative look on his face that she had never thought to see the goofy man wear.

"Tell me about my son's zanpakuto."

"Huh? Well, you won't ever have to question paternity. He's definitely your kid. Zangetsu's Getsuga Tenshou is pretty much the same as Engetsu's."

"The spirits are nothing alike." Isshin did not elaborate. "You trained with them for three days. What was Zangetsu like?"

Yoruichi blinked. "Well, they were fighting most of the time. Ichigo was going for bankai. He was… stern, I guess. Unrelenting. Determined to test Ichigo, to get him to fight with all his power. He's a sword, what did you expect?"

"…am I a bad father, Yoruichi?"

"_Woah!_" She pulled Isshin out of the room so they wouldn't wake the girls, not noticing Yuzu's eyes open behind her. She shook Karin awake and the twins followed them to the kitchen, leaning with their ears pressed against the door.

"OK, I'm not really the person you should be having this talk with, but what the hell brought that on? You've got two wonderful little girls. Your son has grown into an amazing young man. You're doing _something _right."

"If I'm remembering the theory right, a shinigami's zanpakuto is a symbiotic being. They bind with a plus soul, or in the worst-case scenario, two plus souls, and the shinigami and the zanpakuto share their powers… but Ichigo is human. His powers came from my side of the family, but he is a living soul. He had the reiatsu, but no way to use it until that girl gave him a template to model himself on. Zangetsu was born when my son gained Kuchiki Rukia's powers. Am I right, Yoruichi?"

"Yes…" She still couldn't see where this was going.

"You've seen Ichigo's memories of the fight with Aizen. When I showed up, he was shocked. I'd never told him. I thought about it every day after he got her powers, but… it was just… how do you tell your son you've lied to him his entire life? Each day, I decided I would tell him tomorrow. It looks like I kept on doing that."

"I'm not saying that was the best way to handle the situation, Isshin, but what does that have to do with Zangetsu?"

"The soul of a fifteen-year-old formed itself a partner according to its own needs and desires, Yoruichi. And when it did…" his voice broke a little "… when it made the being it wanted to fight with for its entire existence… it made a middle-aged man. A teacher. A mentor. Stern and unrelenting, and so damn proud of him it hurts to watch."

Everything Isshin had never shown Ichigo he could be. Yoruichi began to understand.

"I just- I don't know if I was ever there for him. What memories does he have of me? If he has a problem later on, will he come to me… or to himself?"

The door caved in at that point, and Karin, Yuzu, Chad, Hiyori, Shinji, Rose, and Hachi fell onto the floor. Hachi was on top, and it was clearly the addition of his massive weight that had caused the collapse. The twins wiggled out from under the pile and went to their father.

"Please don't cry, Daddy."

"You do OK, goat-face."

'_I'll find out for you, Isshin.'_

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Long author's note (teaser at the end):

So, my possible explanation for Ukitake stems from the fact that Unohana is _really_ old; it is strongly implied that she is the second-oldest of the captains. She has been a captain for a canon-confirmed minimum of two centuries, and at some points in the anime Ukitake addresses her as his senior. Ukitake and Shunsui were the first two of Yamamoto's students to become captains, and Yamamoto founded the Shinigami academy two thousand years ago. That means that, for the vast majority of her lifetime, the human response to disease has been to make the patient comfortable and hope/pray they'll get better. Hanataro once said that the Fourth Division doesn't go to the human world; it is entirely possible that Kurosaki Isshin is the _only_ shinigami with any modern human medical training, and he probably wasn't a member of the Fourth before leaving the Gotei 13. Urahara and Mayuri probably know about the developments in microbiology, but Urahara was exiled before the development of antibiotics and Mayuri is creepy. No-one would voluntarily collaborate with him. Finally, almost everything the Fourth Division sees is blunt tissue wounds, which kido heals much, much better than human medicine. Unohana simply doesn't have much reason to believe that humanity would come up with anything she couldn't, so she hasn't been paying attention in the last five or six decades.

The whole 'kido doesn't kill' explanation can also be applied to other forms of malignant growth, by the way. Does anyone else think Kuchiki Hisana died of cancer?

I spent some time this chapter focusing on character reactions to the Ichigo's time travel, and on Gin in particular. Him being redeemed doesn't mean he's not an amoral fanatic. The scene with Isshin was written a long time ago because Zangetsu kind of strikes me as a father-substitute in places in the anime and manga. My theory on how Zanpakuto partner with Shinigami comes from the fact that Tosen was able to take on a different Zanpakuto spirit and that sometimes one spirit is shared by two shinigami. I don't think that humans are born with zanpakuto, so I decided that Zangetsu was born from Ichigo's desire to protect his family when Rukia gave him her powers.

I didn't wind up putting the DiamondDust Rebellion in this chapter; the Espada lecture stretched to about twice as long as I'd thought it would (there are _so_ many cool things I needed to include) and I decided that thirteen pages of stuff the reader was already familiar with was more than enough. It, the Amagai arc, Yoruichi's questioning of Ichigo, and the first attempt at hollowification will be in the next chapter, which I'll try to put up next weekend. (Given that it's very early Sunday morning as I post this, I'm not going to promise to have it up on Saturday again.)

**The teaser:**

"I deserted."

"I think eventually they decided to call it 'absent without leave for personal business'. Matsumoto was complaining about the paperwork for weeks."


	9. Chapter 8 Circle of Life

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

**FANART!** Lizeth has made a fantastic sketch of Scary!Unohana from chapter 2 and of Zangetsu and Yachiru from chapter 7. The link is: lizeth. deviantart. com/art/HeM-sketch-193460959 (take out the spaces) and is also on my profile.

Gree: I'll have to read that part of the manga again; my impression was that Shinji was waiting for Ichigo because he needed a healer and Ichigo had gone to get Orihime, but I could be wrong. I probably should have made the deal with the Vizards more explicit; sorry. From chapter 2: "And, if I let him know that the price for the safety of his little sisters is the information he can provide, I'll have his life story in seconds." For taking the family in, they get access to all of the information from/about the timetraveling new vizard. I don't think bacterial infections are very common in soul society, and I deliberately did not address the question of *how* Ukitake contracted a bacterial infection, 'cause I've got nothing. And I just meant that Ichigo's probably more likely at this point to go to Zangetsu if he has a problem than to Isshin.

1/17 edit: in response to reviewer comments, I have expanded the DiamondDust Rebellion scene by a few paragraphs to include a more in-depth look at Hitsugaya's reaction to the events.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

On the morning of the eighth day after they had come back in time, Ichigo headed out to Urahara's old training cavern. After the humans had informed her about a cure, Unohana had turned her attention to Yoruichi and began gently convincing the former captain of the Second to change her stance against putting Isshin in communication with the Seireitei. As Ichigo gratefully escaped from the room, he estimated that it would take her about ten minutes to break. (A hero-worshipping Soi Fon would tell him later that day that it took almost half an hour, due primarily to "Yoruichi-samas' unparalleled knowledge of counter-interrogation techniques".) He had swung by the Twelfth Division to show Mayuri how he'd made a Garganta in the future before finally reaching the underground hideout.

Zangetsu-no-ossan had returned to his soul briefly, before Ichigo manifested him again and the older man disappeared once more to the outer edges of the Rukongai. In the time between his first return and his second, Ichigo's attempt to learn how to enter Resurreccion had degenerated from a meditation session in his inner world to an all-out fist-fight with the hollow. Ichigo's sword appeared on a nearby skyscraper and observed the scene silently.

"You're a coward, Ichigo!" Now that he was unrestrained by minor things like ceilings and the need to keep training rooms intact, the hollow was attacking Ichigo much more indiscriminately than in their last fight, and dove into the skyscraper fist-first to leave a crater where Ichigo had been standing a half second earlier. "It's your power! You're the king! Call it and it will come!"

"What the hell," Ichigo flash-stepped forward and side-kicked, only to be forced to block a punch to the stomach and jump back, "do you think I've been _doing? !_"

"NOTHING! You're too scared to actually try! You've got to want it! Do you know what your problem is? You don't want to become a hollow!"

Ichigo thought that was too self-evident to deserve a response, and just closed the distance between them with a round-kick. It was blocked by Zangetsu-no-ossan's upraised arm, as the dark cleaver that came into existence in his right hand formed a shield against the hollow's punch to his other side.

The hollow snorted, Ichigo sighed, and they both relaxed as they backed away from the black-clad man between them.

"Why the hell do you keep doing that?" the hollow grumbled.

"Your bickering serves no purpose if he can see." While Ichigo blinked at the implication that the older man would have let the fight continue if he had had the visor on, he added, "He is correct, Ichigo. You have the capacity to hollowify completely; you have already done so several times. You simply do not truly desire to do so."

"I've been trying!" Ichigo snapped. Two hours with his mask on, while his hollow gave increasingly more annoying, useless instructions- what the hell? _Two hours_?

"The mask didn't break," he realized, looking at them. Only Mashiro had been able to hold it for that long.

"You accepted your powers in the precipice world, King. You'll be able to keep the hollowification for as long as we've got the reiatsu. And we've got a lot of reiatsu."

"It is not enough, but it is a step in the right direction," Zangetsu-no-ossan agreed. "As for Resurreccion, we will need to resort to more drastic measures. If you need it to fight, you will desire to transform. Abarai Renji has already expressed the desire to help."

"The only time I've needed it that badly was against the Espada. A sparring match with Renji isn't gonna cut it."

"It would, perhaps, if you were blind and handicapped."

Ichigo winced on his friend's behalf, but honestly couldn't argue. "What do you mean, handicapped?"

"Hollowification is your last resort. Always, you enter Bankai before calling on your mask. That must change. Until you have called on your Resurreccion, I will not allow you to enter the final release."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

After a brief, heated argument in which his sword refused to relent, Ichigo manifested them both so that the hollow could experiment with the garganta, and then went off to lunch. The hollow was, oddly enough, the one who had suggested that he practice moving between dimensions rather than attempt to find Kenpachi again.

The brief visit to Mayuri that morning had been productive, in a way. He had shown Mayuri the construction of the Garganta that Urahara used to get Chad, Ishida, and Ichigo to Hueco Mundo, and then Mayuri's construction of the semi-permanent one to get him home. With the techniques and glimpses of equipment that he had been given, Mayuri was able to ecstatically assure the teenager that he would be able to reverse-engineer the procedure in time to make a gateway for Ichigo to use.

A memory that Ichigo did not show, however, was Mayuri's unsubtle threat to Unohana: that if he could form the Garganta, he could also close it off mid-journey. Ichigo was fairly certain that the man wasn't insane enough to cut him off between the worlds before he had killed Aizen. None of them, however, were willing to trust him to get them home.

The repeated demands that Ichigo become a test subject, interspersed with offers of less inhumane treatment than the other lab rats, only cemented their determination.

After lunch, he met with Soi Fon alone for the first time, as Yoruichi had been dispatched to the living world. They stood opposite each other on the sand-covered floor of the Nightingale Room at the Academy. The floor did not creak, and the sand under their feet was undisturbed.

"Your progress has been acceptable up to this point," the petite woman stated. It was the fourth day of their afternoon sessions. Soi Fon did not believe in verbally encouraging her subordinates, and would never tell Ichigo that new recruits from the Academy generally took months to advance as far as he had. '_It's just as Yoruichi-sama said. He grows at a frightening rate.'_

"Today, we will be working on moving silently at the speed of shunpo-" and her eyes widened as Ichigo suddenly appeared next to her. He flashed a cocky smirk down at her head.

"I've been practicing." The next instant, he was in his original position. Soi Fon glanced down. There were no footprints in the sand.

'_Brat.'_

"Then defend yourself, Kurosaki Ichigo!" That was all the warning she gave him before she flashed forward, and Ichigo barely got his arms crossed in front of him to meet her punch. He grunted as he absorbed the blow before flashing backwards again, drawing his right hand across his eyes.

Soi Fon stilled, looking at the visor. "You are arrogant, Kurosaki. You _dare_ to fight a captain blind?"

"I'm going to have to, yeah. I'm not asking you to go easy. And it'd be good practice if you tried to break the blindfold."

"You will regret your boldness, when you cannot move tomorrow for the bruises." She flashed to his side and scored a jab to the ribs as he twisted and swung at the air she had been in a millisecond before. Though he could not see it, his fist passed through her afterimage.

He had barely enough time to flash to the side to avoid the side kick flying down at him from above and behind. He instinctively stopped very close by, inside of his reach and outside of hers, and counterattacked with a round-kick to her body. She placed one hand on the leg coming towards her and used it as leverage, inverting herself and smashing a foot into Ichigo's face.

Ichigo flew backwards with his eyes tightly closed, fragments of his visor trailing behind him. He twisted and pushed off the sand with one silent hand as the other called the blindfold back, and he did not land on the ground. Instead, he pushed off of thin air and shot forward with a punch, barely missing her.

As the fight went on, their respective strengths became more and more apparent. Soi Fon was faster and far, far more skilled in both hand-to-hand combat and flash-step. She either danced around Ichigo's blows or simply was not there when they landed. Ichigo was stronger, had a much greater reach, and could take considerably more damage. Fewer of his strikes landed, and all of the ones that did (the punch to the stomach as her ax-kick smashed into his kneecap, the elbow to her head as her punch hit the kidneys, the palm strike to her torso as she punched his jaw…) were sacrificial moves, where he chose to attack her instead of blocking or dodging the incoming strike. Each hit Soi Fon took, however, did far more damage than any single blow that fell on Ichigo, and she was soon forced to attack more cautiously to avoid being trapped in close.

Soi Fon's eyes narrowed as, between ten and eleven minutes into the fight, Kurosaki began flash-stepping back across the training hall in a random pattern to try to avoid any incoming strikes. With a smirk on her lips that her opponent could not see, she shunpo'd next to him in one of his minute pauses, and slammed her fist into his temple with _exactly_ the same strike he had used on her eight days ago.

Ichigo went flying and crashed into the floor to make the first indentation on the sand that day as the boards chirped under him. He groaned and struggled to his hands and knees before managing to rise completely to his feet.

"Will you continue, Kurosaki?" The coldly-voiced question was rhetorical; after seeing the fights with the Espada last night, she knew he would not stay down until beaten unconscious.

Ichigo _forced _himself to sense past the fading throb in his head, and took the traditional karate guarding stance in response. Soi Fon's smirk widened. The boy had promise.

The fight continued along much the same lines. Soi Fon found that she was actually enjoying herself; few of her subordinates could last against her long enough to actually strike back. Omaeda did not merit consideration. It was not as much of a challenge as the fight with her mentor last week had been, but it was still one of her best bouts that decade. She began a mental countdown as her internal clock hit eleven minutes, waiting for the chance to answer a question she had had since seeing her image attack an illusory Aizen four days ago.

'_There!'_ At roughly the fifteen minute mark, Ichigo's movements once again became erratic, and she silently flashed to the wall and drew her sword. Her stinger formed with a whispered command and a name, and the fight ended with her crouched on Ichigo's shoulder-blades and the edge of the stinger at the vein of his throat.

"You lose," she purred into his ear.

"When the hell did you get that?" Ichigo raised his hands in surrender and pulled the visor off his face. As she hopped off of his back, Soi Fon's hand casually brushed against the back of Ichigo's neck, parting his hair slightly to confirm what she had already suspected. Where the first of two strikes had hit, a slight touch that Ichigo had not even noticed, no butterfly had formed.

It was not just when he was untouchable, then. Soi Fon knew that, in terms of reiatsu, she was far from the most powerful of the captains. Despite her unwieldy bankai, her strength lay in speed and finesse. She didn't think she was too far below Gin in terms of sheer spiritual energy, however, and all of the higher officers in the Gotei Thirteen had a decent idea of where Ichigo stood in comparison to him.

"How much formal training have you had in hakuda?" She sealed her sword once more and walked back to the wall, where her sheath was dwarfed by Zangetsu's white-wrapped blade.

"I took karate classes until middle school. I've been in a fair number of street fights since then, and my dad and I fight a lot. Are we done already?" Ichigo stretched and rubbed one of his newly-developing bruises, deciding to find Hanataro before Soi Fon's pre-fight taunt became prophetic.

"I am satisfied that you can move silently enough to avoid notice. Until Yoruichi-sama returns tomorrow, we will work on your shunpo technique. I wish to see how far you can travel in a single step. Follow me to the training fields."

As they left the building, Soi Fon paused and raised her voice. "Inform your instructors that I have no further need of this hall. Classes may resume tomorrow. And do not ever believe that you have escaped notice simply because I do not choose to acknowledge you."

The underbrush around the training hall rustled as the Academy students that had been watching through the windows ran away as fast as they could. Ichigo scratched his head. "Harsh. The ones hanging upside-down from the shingles were pretty determined."

"There is no shame in finding examples to follow. Letting them believe that they were hidden, however, would only encourage bad habits. Follow me, and make your shunpo as long as possible."

As she set off, Soi Fon's mind was mulling over alternatives. Even when he was only in Shikai, Suzumebachi could not touch him. Her bankai might be able to take Kurosaki out, if she managed to take him by surprise before he released his sword and mask, but he was durable enough that she could not count on it.

The boy was a wild card; his loyalty was to people rather than to any law or order. There was no guarantee that they would always be on the same side of a conflict. She rather hoped that it would never come to a true fight with him, but if it did there would be contingency plans. She was Onmitsukido. There were _always_ contingency plans.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

At Orihime's insistence, the three humans went to Ukitake's room before dinner to give him the get-well card she had made in the crafts room earlier that day. They found him conscious and filling out papers for Rukia to take over to the first division before the administrative offices closed. As the new low woman on the totem pole in the division's administration, she had spent the day running between the Fourth and the Thirteenth for signatures, deliveries, and gossip on the latest developments on a potential cure for Ukitake.

"Ukitake-san! We wanted to give this to you with our best wishes! We hope you feel better soon." Orihime gave him the card with a bow and a serious expression on her face. "We all signed it!"

"Thank you, Inoue-san." Ukitake read the inscription inside and looked at the picture drawn on the cover of Ukitake facing a sunset.

"It's very… sparkly," Rukia remarked weakly. It was true- Orihime had somehow managed to find a supply of glitter, and both the sun and Ukitake's hair glinted brightly.

"At least she didn't make him into a crappily-drawn rabb_oof."_ Ichigo had made the mistake of leaning against the wall next to Rukia's chair, and grunted at the punch to the ribs.

"And, I am told that I owe thanks to all four of you for today's excitement. It has been a very long time since there has been this much chance of a cure." At Ukitake's words, Ishida sighed and looked out the window. There had been enough hints over the last week- Ukitake's remarks about centuries of instructing young shinigami, the projected Yamamoto's statement to Aizen that he had captained the Gotei Thirteen for a thousand years, four captains last night who might have been expected to recognize a shinigami stuck in Hueco Mundo for hundreds of years, Unohana's very out-of-date knowledge of human diseases…

"Are they gonna be able to fix you?" As he spoke Ichigo sidled away from the little menace next to him, who was also waiting eagerly for the answer.

"Unohana-taicho is talking with your father as we speak. The simplest thing to try is to just place me in a gigai and see if the creatures come with me. If they do, I would undergo the human treatment. After the current crisis is past, I may be your houseguest for a few months."

"Yuzu would be thrilled." Ichigo's frown faded slightly at the thought of the baby of the family. "She loves having new people to take care of."

"She is a charming child," Ukitake agreed. "If they do not, Retsu will attempt to create a specialized Hado that attacks the creatures and not myself, or ask Mayuri-taicho to research an equivalent to the human medicine that would function for a spiritual body. Simply having a new direction of research has given her more hope than I have seen in centuries."

"How many centuries?" They glanced at Ishida. He was still casually leaning against the wall, looking out the window, and didn't turn as he spoke. "How long have you two been captains?"

Ukitake had not missed the occasional sidelong glance that the young archer had given him, and had expected this for days. His voice was gentle as he answered the question Ishida was truly asking. "Unohana, Kyoraku, and I are all that remain of the old guard from the Quincy War. Yamamoto-soutaicho, of course, was in command of the military operations."

"Ah." Ishida let out a ragged sigh. "…how strange. I like all three of you."

"Ishida-kun…" Orihime took a step towards him, hand outstretched. Under other circumstances Ishida would have been pleased. Now, he cut her off with a sharp gesture as he finally turned from the window to look at Ukitake.

"It's old news. My grandfather was a fair man, and when I was a child, it sounded like you were trying to stop the destruction of the world. But I hadn't expected to meet anyone involved. From what I can tell, you three are the most decent captains you've got. Why did you let it happen?"

Ukitake sighed. "It would be easy to abdicate responsibility for the final decision, even for the Captain-commander. Declarations of war come from the Central Chambers, and we are sworn to uphold their directions. In matters concerning the living world, however, they usually follow the recommendations of the shinigami who serve there, and they did so in this case. The Quincy War followed a breakdown of negotiations between the Seireitei and the man who currently held the Quincy Cross.

"The truly heartbreaking thing was that his side of the argument was perfectly understandable; dense concentrations of humans with high spirit energy naturally draw hollows, and we simply did not have the manpower to mount the guard that the Quincy families worldwide would need if they were to lay down their bows. Despite that, when the situation became critical, the recommendation Yamamoto-soutaicho gave to the Central 46 was supported by all twelve of us, the commander of the Onmitsukido, and the captain of the Kido Corps."

"A recommendation for genocide." Ishida's voice was cold.

"It was, yes." Ukitake's answer was quiet and solemn, but held no guilt. "It is unfortunate when a human life is cut short, because you have so little time already. To pack so much into so small a space is truly remarkable. But life and death operate in a cycle, Ishida-san. We decimated a population of spiritually powerful humans, and a few decades later we began to see our old enemies in the fresh faces coming from the Academy."

"No Quincy would become a shinigami," snapped the last of their race.

"The memories of a lifetime fade quickly in the Rukongai." They looked at Rukia, who had seen it happen to many newcomers. "For most people it is a few weeks, six months at the very most, and then the memories begin to become more distant, until they have lived in the Rukongai for as long as they can remember except in their dreams. Very few shinigami remember living in the human world."

"War is a terrible thing." Ukitake's gaze was distant, remembering. "We left the elders and children and anyone too feeble to pull back a bow alone, but the archers on the battlefield died to the last man and woman, and they did not fall easily. I lost many friends in those fights, and none of their souls will ever return to these lands. Have you ever truly considered your abilities, young Quincy?"

"I don't regret defending myself or my home." Ishida did not fail to note the decrease in the intimacy of Ukitake's speech.

"And if it were Aizen in your bowsight, even I would urge you to release the string. Some souls should not be returned to the cycle; they must be sealed away or destroyed. The destruction of a soul, however, is our greatest and most fearsome punishment. It should not be done to the innocent."

Rukia stiffened as Ishida ruthlessly pointed out, "The Gotei 13 didn't seem to have a problem with it last week."

"A quarter of us mutinied to prevent it, Ishida-san." His voice was chiding, like that of a teacher with a recalcitrant student.

"I don't think that was Kenpachi's motivation," Ichigo muttered to break the tense atmosphere. His attempt was completely ignored. Ukitake's voice was still gentle and kind as he continued to speak, but it was clear that he had not remained a captain for as long as he had by ignoring his opponent's weak spots.

"Every hollow you kill was once a human that in all probability led a relatively blameless life, and will never have the opportunity to do so again. Any human souls they have devoured will join them in oblivion. Should you ever become powerful enough to stand against a Menos," and Ukitake was now remembering the images of Ishida firing thousands of arrows at dozens of Gillians, which Ichigo had shown to Ishida and Orihime privately, "you could destroy the soul of every hollow that merged to form it.

"You seem like a fine young man, Ishida-san, and I owe you a personal debt. For your own sake, I hope you recover your powers as you desire. It cannot be easy to turn from predator to prey. If you have a hollow under your arrow, however, I ask that you leave the killing blow to a shinigami. It is our duty to deal with the dead."

"You sound like my father."

"Then he is a wise man."

"It was not a compliment." As Ishida stalked to the door, he paused, and sighed. "I do hope you feel better by tomorrow." With that, he was gone.

"Ishida-kun!"

"Ishida!"

"Let him go." Ichigo stopped short at Rukia's grip on his arm, and Orihime also turned to look at her. "Allow him to calm down and think about it. It was nothing he did not know, but he may not have considered it recently, or in this manner."

"He's a good guy." Ichigo looked at Ukitake, but did not attempt to make Rukia move her hand. "He'll never admit it, but he is. He just wants to help fight."

"I have no doubt of it," the bedridden captain answered. "From the images you showed of him last night, he is intelligent and resourceful. If he ever becomes a shinigami, I would gladly welcome him into the Thirteenth."

"Then why were you so…" Orihime trailed off, searching for the correct word. Blunt? Unforgiving?

The answer came from Rukia rather than Ukitake. "Remember your brother, and be grateful that you were defended that night by Ichigo, and not Ishida. It is a terrible power."

"He's got a right to protect himself and his friends," Ichigo said as Rukia finally let him go. If the Seireitei ever attempted to deny him that, Ichigo knew who he would be standing with. Ishida had, or rather, would have fought at his back too many times for any other decision.

"As did his ancestors. The recommendation was unanimous, Kurosaki-san, but that does not mean that it was easy." The white-haired man leaned back in the bed, visibly paler than when they had entered the room. "Forgive me, but I am still quite tired."

"Of course, Taicho!" Rukia instantly began shoving her two friends out of the room. As she slid the door closed closed behind her, Ichigo sighed, running his hand through his hair.

"Do you want me to drop your stuff off at the First? I'm heading over there."

"Ah! What about dinner?" Orihime's stomach was audibly rumbling.

"Lost my appetite." Ichigo looked at her concerned face and relented. "Can you save me something?"

"Of course! I'll make a special plate just for you!"

Ichigo began to get visions of the concoctions he'd seen her eat, both in the future and in the mess hall the last couple of days. "Just fruit and bread. Please."

"Alright. I'll make Ishida-kun a plate as well."

Ichigo bit his lip. "You should save him a full meal. I'm… sure it would take his mind off things. Where should the paperwork go, Rukia?"

"If you are not familiar with the different sections of the office, it would be easier for me to do it myself. I will walk with you, if you like."

"Sure. Lemme get changed first. See you later, Inoue," he said as he headed to their room to put on a shihakusho.

When he and Rukia walked out of the building, he was accosted by three hell butterflies. The first and second were from the First Division, one informing everyone that the meeting that night had been cancelled (Ichigo presumed because of Ukitake and Yoruichi's absence and Unohana's reluctance to stop working) and the other sent directly to Ichigo to inform him that Yamamoto was still expecting him. The final butterfly was from the Tenth Division, and Ichigo heard Hitsugaya Toshiro's voice requesting a meeting that evening.

"I've got a meeting with jii-san, but I can swing by your office after it's done," Ichigo told the insect on his finger. The bug fluttered off to carry the short phrase back to the original sender, and Ichigo looked at Rukia.

"Why don't you guys use cell phones?"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

In his office a short time later, Yamamoto stared in mild disbelief at the frozen image in front of him, which showed Soi Fon's subordinate Amagai killing the regent of one of the greatest noble houses. "And so, you were on the run from the entire Gotei Thirteen. Again. And had kidnapped a member of the nobility."

Ichigo winced. "It made sense at the time, and they weren't really looking that hard. Afterwards, pretty much everyone decided you were waiting for us to turn up some evidence of their treason so you could move in. The invasion plan was in place and everything."

"The Kasumioji…" Yamamoto closed his eyes again. It was maddening to attempt to guess at the motivations and reasoning of his future self without having access to the knowledge and experience forming his decisions. He'd had some faith in the boy in the future; that was evident. But whether it was a belief in his abilities and judgment, or a belief that the chaos that the boy seemed to cause wherever he went would stir the pot enough for something to float to the surface, he had no way of knowing. "Continue, Kurosaki."

The projection moved to Amagai Shusuke's disappearance with the Kasumioji princess, then shifted to the shattered balcony of the same office they were currently standing in as Ichigo moved in to clash with the rouge captain. As Amagai monologued about his reasons for his treachery, Yamamoto sighed again. "Kisaragi's boy…"

The fight was joined as Yamamoto judged his possible future captain's fighting style and technique, without failing to notice that the Vizard was standing against him with only part of his strength. That likely said more about the amount of reiatsu Kurosaki had available, however, than about the strength of his opponent.

/ "_I'm going to make it so you don't ever make that sad face again."_/

Yamamoto added Kasumioji Rurichiyo to the ever-growing list of people that Kurosaki Ichigo would be willing to die for despite the fact that they had never met him. Oddly enough, it seemed that he had a place on that list too, at least while unable to defend himself. Kurosaki had stepped between Amagai and Yamamoto as well. The illusory fight concluded in Ichigo's favor, and they both watched grimly as Amagai realized the error over his father's death that he had founded his life on, and chose the only means left to regain his pride.

"So, what are you gonna do about them?" As Ichigo spoke the projection blinked out, replacing the shattered rubble that would have been Yamamoto's office with the current, intact version.

"Young Kisaragi will be simple enough. An explanation may suffice, if he believes it. If not, at least his weapons will be neutralized. The Kasumioji…" He considered his options before continuing.

"They will be more complicated. They are a noble family with the royal blessing, and even with the powers granted to me under martial law I cannot overturn a previous ruling of the Central Chambers. I need physical evidence. The shinigami serving the princess may be willing to provide a foot soldier wielding a Bakkotou. If the rumor mill is functioning adequately, they will be familiar enough with current events to be willing to help."

"Why do you listen to them? Rukia, Amagai, the Vizards, the Bount…" Ichigo trailed off rather than mention the fight for Hyorinmaru that he was about to show Toshiro, or the mod-soul project that Kon had been a part of, or the order for Muramasa's nullification. From everything he had seen and heard, Aizen had done Soul Society a favor by killing off the Central 46.

"Because they are the government." Yamamoto watched Ichigo carefully, taking note of every expression flitting over his face and the snow-globe clenched tightly in his right hand.

"They're wrong most of the time! You _know_ they're wrong! Why do you listen to them?"

So young, and so naïve. So very naïve. "Because I have the power to force them to obey me, and because I also cannot always be right. If I do not follow, no one will."

"_That makes no sense!"_

"Ask me again in fifty years, child. Ask the question after you die an old man." If he still did not understand, Soul Society might not survive the resulting battles. Yamamoto slammed his cane onto the floor, making Ichigo jump. "We will discuss the events you showed last night. Your greatest error was not having the girl heal you directly after your fight with the Sixth Espada. Your reiatsu levels were not severely depleted, but your physical health was detrimental in the fight with the Fifth…"

Ichigo grimaced as the old man firmly changed the subject, but raised the memory projector to change the surroundings to the events he was talking about as the grizzled voice washed through the room.

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Ichigo knocked once on the door to Hitsugaya's office and slid it open at the call to enter.

"Kurosaki. Welcome." The youngest captain looked up from where he had been getting a start on the next day's workload.

"Sorry it took so long."

"Do not be concerned. Matsumoto always leaves plenty to be done in the office," the youngest captain answered dryly. "Why did you ask for this meeting?"

Ichigo raised the snow-globe, not noticing Hitsugaya's eyes narrow at the flecks of _blue_ light hovering around the stone attached to the base. "You know the guy-"

"Kurosaki, it is likely I will want a recording of what you wish to show me. Do you happen to have a clean memory chip?" Toshiro interrupted.

"Huh? Yeah, sure, jii-san just took the one that was in there, so I put in a new one before I came. Nemu gave me a supply." Ichigo flicked the switch to 'record', and as the recorders turned from blue to white, the data began to be sent to the chip in the base rather than to the monitoring station in the First Division. Hitsugaya relaxed, then stiffened again at the image Ichigo chose to start out with.

"Kusaka… how?"

"I don't know. Sorry. You might have known how he lived, but you never talked about it."

"Start from the beginning, Kurosaki. Don't leave anything out."

Ichigo nodded and sent his reiatsu into the projector again. "The Onmitsukido put up a barrier near Karakura without telling us, so Ishida and I both decided to swing by to find out what was going on."

Their surroundings flowed into a sunny battlefield, with the diminutive captain of the Second coldly telling him about the theft of the Royal Seal and the presumed desertion of the captain of the Tenth. He continued the projection until Soi Fon shattered the barrier, returning the surroundings to the bleak night woods.

"You'd been hurt in the attack, and hadn't gone far. As soon as the barrier was gone, you stopped hiding your reiatsu and collapsed." The scene flickered forward a few minutes, to Ichigo and Ishida kneeling beside his unconscious body, and then to Ichigo's room with Hitsugaya lying unconscious on the bed. "It was late and you weren't dying, so I brought you home instead of taking you to Inoue's place. I was gonna call her in the morning, but you left."

The scene moved forward several hours to where the early morning light illuminated the bedroom surrounding them. Hitsugaya looked grimly at the haori of the tenth division captain where it lay folded with military precision on Ichigo's desk, while Ichigo's projected image cursed and grabbed the pentagonal badge that would free him from the constraints of his mortal body. There were briefly three Ichigos before the shinigami projection put his body onto the bed and left the room via the window, following Toshiro's reiatsu. He had not gotten far, and they waited at the end of the street for him.

/_ "You don't have to sneak out. If you had to leave, you could at least let me know. Why are you acting so guilty all of a sudden?"_

"_Thanks for your help. I'm grateful."_

"_Why're you trying to go alone?"/_

The conversation between the images continued, Ichigo pressing Toshiro for answers and the white-haired boy ignoring the questions, then finally simply walking on. The projected Ichigo grabbed Toshiro's shoulder to stop him, and the future Hitsugaya's sword slashed through the torso of the current one while the entire scene moved around them as the projection leapt back to dodge the strike.

"What…" Toshiro' eyes were wide.

/_ "What's your problem?'!"_

"_Don't interfere."_

"_Shut up! I'm supposed to let a half-dead guy wander off alone?" _/

At that, Toshiro frowned and walked forward to his image, looking at the damage. The abrupt movement to draw his sword had reopened the wound, and Ichigo obligingly paused the projection to let him try to figure out if Ichigo's past self had been exaggerating. The wound was covered by the robes, however, and the young captain snorted in frustration as his searching hand passed through his illusory double.

"How bad was it?"

Ichigo moved the scene back to the forest where Toshiro had originally collapsed. Ishida was taking his pulse while Ichigo opened his top and looked at the wound. Hitsugaya joined him, staring down at his own prone form.

"Like I said, you weren't dying originally. The wound was closed until you ripped it open. You'd have been fine if you'd stayed in bed until Inoue got there."

Hitsugaya sighed. "Continue, Kurosaki."

The projection flickered back to the confrontation between the two.

/ _"You've got two choices: contact the Onmitsukido or come back to my house."_/

The projected images stared at each other stubbornly before they were suddenly attacked from a fireball from above, and Hitsugaya took the opportunity to attack Ichigo, pushing him back. As they crossed blades, their eyes met.

/ "_Please."_/

The two newcomers took over the fight and got in a few elemental attacks before retreating after a Getsuga Tensho. Before the projection went dark, Toshiro could see himself following them.

"I deserted."

"I think eventually they decided to call it 'absent without leave for personal business'. Matsumoto was complaining about the paperwork for weeks."

"What then?"

"We were looking for you, but Kira and Hisagi and their squads found you first." Their surroundings shifted to a frozen grove of trees surrounding a small cabin. "Kyoraku-san had been attacked in the Seireitei by Hyorinmaru at about the same time, so people were starting to realize that something was weird, but he was unconscious and couldn't tell anyone that you hadn't attacked him."

He decided not to mention that the 'detain' order had been formally changed to a writ of execution, and simply switched to his own brief fight with Kusaka. As he watched the projected fight, Ichigo remembered that he'd gotten an unusually deep look at the feeling behind Kusaka's sword, clear enough that as they came to that part of the fight, the surroundings almost shifted to _Kusaka's_ memory before he wrenched his mind back to the air above Karakura. He didn't think Toshiro would be happy he'd seen something that personal.

/ "_Hitsugaya will walk the same path as me. I won't let anyone stop me!_"/

Ichigo paused the projection as his image was covered in ice. "He left then. I broke out of the ice with my bankai, and my friends took over the fight with the arrancar so Rukia and I could go after you."

The two black-clad warriors fell out of the hole in the sky, and the real Ichigo and Toshiro stood by them as the illusory ground rose to meet them and Ichigo's past self used a Getsuga Tensho to cut a line in the sand that none of the shinigami crossed. He engaged in a verbal altercation with Soi Fon that was interrupted by the arrival of the senior captains and the captain-commander, including a now-conscious Kyoraku, who confirmed that Hitsugaya had not attacked him. The true image breathed a sigh of relieve as his double _finally_ attacked Kusaka. He himself hadn't been sure he was going to do his duty, at the end.

/ _"You don't have to do this alone!" The illusory Ichigo stepped up besides him_. "_Let your friends take some of your pain, and the resolve that goes with it!_"

"_I am no longer a captain."_/

The punch that followed sent Hitsugaya's image flying through Ichigo's torso, and the true captain raised his eyebrows as he looked down at himself. "I see you were no longer concerned about my injuries. Was that necessary?"

"Yes."

/ "_I know someone who didn't like to rely on others, just like you. In the end he was weaker than everyone else!"_/

"Who was the person you were talking about, Kurosaki?"

Ichigo winced as the image flashed briefly to a riverbank and his younger self before he cut it off. "I shut my family out when my mom died. There weren't too happy about it."

As Hitsugaya nodded, he started the projection with the activation of the Seal. After Hitsugaya donned his haori and they were separated, Ichigo only showed brief images of his own fights, figuring that Hitsugaya would be impatient. "The captains who'd gotten stuck outside of the dome were trying to keep it from growing any bigger. Those of us inside had to get at the seal."

As Ichigo's image converged with Toshiro's he let the projection drop into real-time, and they travelled with their counterparts as Daigurin Hyorinmaru coiled snake-like around Kusaka's mutated form and Ichigo took the opening to dart in, stab the Oin, and release the Getsuga Tensho trapped in his sword.

"Did you just attempt to destroy a _ROYAL ARTIFACT_?" Toshiro's voice ended in an embarrassing squeak.

"It was fine! It dropped down after this and you gave it back."

The boy looked like he wanted to continue that line of conversation, but was distracted by the final, traditional kendo charge between his image and his now-humanoid friend. Ichigo turned off the projection as Hitsugaya's image whispered goodbye.

Toshiro took several deep breaths, calming himself, attempting to think rationally about his options. "Do you know where he is now?"

"Hueco Mundo, probably. Do you want to head back with me after this is over? There'll probably be some stuff I need to take care of too."

"Do I have even the slightest hope of leaving you behind, Kurosaki?" Hitsugaya's voice was dry. The possibility wasn't as annoying as it had been. Kurosaki was powerful, and he, and apparently all of his human friends, had been willing to shelter him from the Onmitsukido. Not unquestioningly, but certainly without hesitation. Few shinigami would do as much.

"Dunno about you, but I wouldn't trust Mayuri to get me home. I'm getting closer to being able to make a Garganta on my own."

"I would still be looking for a needle in a haystack." He sighed. Yamamoto would be expecting a report on the events, as well, and would no doubt have his own opinions on the proper course of action. "It might be better to set a trap when the Oin is moved. I will need to think about this."

He would need to think carefully on the course of action his future self had taken, as well. He had not missed the fact that he had been standing injured against the entire Seireitei with only a ryoka with more power than sense on his side. If he decided to release the visuals of the report to the other captains, the more suspicious would certainly begin wondering if he had chosen to attack his old friend then, rather than deciding to hunt him down at the beginning. The various commentaries on his motivations notwithstanding.

Hitsugaya wouldn't blame them if that was the conclusion they reached; he himself wasn't sure how he would react to seeing Kusaka again. He was the first true friend besides Momo that the icy boy had made. They had been so alike deep down that it was not surprising they had been compatible with the same Zanpakuto. Oddly, the young captain had only Kurosaki's unwavering belief that he had been honorable to reassure himself that he had intended to do the honorable thing.

Hitsaguya Toshiro decided it was enough, and put the question aside.

"You need any other information?" Ichigo took the chip out of the base of the projector and handed it to him, and the lights on the projector shifted back to blue.

"If I do, I will ask." He paused. "Thank you."

"No problem. Goodnight, Toshiro." Three, two, one- the memory projector flickered back on.

"That's Hitsugaya-taicho-"

/ _"-that's Hitsugaya-taicho to you, not 'Toshiro'."_/

Hitsugaya's mouth snapped shut as he said the first three words in unison with his future self. He snorted as the door closed behind Ichigo, then sighed, looking at the record in his hand.

"Kusaka…"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Author's note:

Wow this was a hard chapter to write. Was the scene between Ukitake and Ishida too out of character? The whole thing with the Quincy genocide and the effects of their power have always struck me as a massive elephant lurking in the corner that no one in the series ever talks about. It's brought up in the Agent of the Shinigami arc and then not really ever mentioned in depth again. It doesn't help that the animated series and the movies practically have stock footage of Ishida mowing down hundreds of hollows with his arrows, although I can't remember offhand a case when this happens in the manga so that might not be canon. It also struck me as interesting that Ukitake and Kyoraku would have the testicular fortitude to mutiny against an excecution but not genocide.

Ichigo vs Soi Fon was brought to you tonight in response to the painfully (and I do mean _painfully_) short Ichigo-Soi Fon fight in the Amagai arc, which I skimmed through again for this chapter. Seriously, ouch. I'm not saying he should have won that fight, but he's had way more formal training in the martial arts than he's had with a sword. I take comfort in the idea that the anime arcs aren't canon.

The next chapter should be up next weekend. (I know I said that last week. In my defense, as I post this, it's still the weekend somewhere.) Among other things, it will contain the Ichigo-Yoruichi conversation I didn't get to this chapter.

The teaser:

"Just because they'd know anything you have to say, doesn't mean you shouldn't say it anyway."


	10. Chapter 9 What Price Immortality

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

**Spoiler Alert**: As usual, the manga/anime up to the Lost Agent arc, and the Fade to Black movie for this chapter in particular.

A/N: I got some remarks in the last chapter that I had skimmed over the DiamondDust rebellion a little too quickly. I didn't have time this week, but sometime in the future I may go back and re-write that scene. The reason I didn't spend much time on it, however, is because I didn't consider it important to my story. For both the movie and the Amagai arc, Ichigo gave the appropriate people the information and isn't going to have much more to do with them during the time-period I'll be covering. (The only part of the Amagai scene that I considered significant was the conversation between Yamamoto and Ichigo about the Central 46.) Since there are plenty of people who just read the manga who might have been confused, I described the movie covered in this chapter in considerably more detail. However, I won't be describing much of the Bount arc. I haven't seen most of those episodes and have no real desire to change that. It will be covered off-screen in the next chapter.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

On the morning of the ninth day after Aizen's betrayal, Ishida glanced at the door as Ichigo walked into the room in the shinigami's shihakusho and hakama.

"In uniform, Kurosaki?" The Quincy was reading on his top bunk, waiting for the other two to finish dressing so they could go to breakfast.

"They grabbed your shirt to wash it," Ichigo answered as he pulled his red chain over his torso.

"There are two more on the windowsill. I finished them last night."

"Thanks. I'm going to be training after breakfast, though. They'd just get ripped." Ichigo had just gotten Renji's response to the hell butterfly Hanataro had helped him send to the Sixth. Renji had agreed to meet him, and mentioned that he would invite Ikkaku because 'he hadn't cut loose in a while'. Ichigo wasn't sure what Renji meant, but had no objections. "So that's where you went?"

"It is where I have been spending the majority of my free time, Kurosaki."

"So it wasn't because of…" Ichigo twitched a hand in the vague direction of Ukitake's room.

"It is all ancient history, and I am not sentimental. It was a momentary curiosity, nothing more." Ishida's gaze was studiously fixed on the page in front of him.

"Ah. Good." Ichigo ran his hand through his hair, and finally just decided to blurt it out. "You know we'll back you up, right? Whatever you do."

Ishida remained quiet for several seconds before glancing at him and raising an eyebrow. "I assure you, I will not need it."

Ichigo snorted. The bastard was fine. "Never mind."

"Why were we talking about this again?" Ishida's lips were twitching slightly.

"Yeah, pretty dumb, right?" Ichigo grabbed his cleaver on the way out the door. Ishida hopped off of the bunk bed to join him as Orihime arrived wearing a new dress, also courtesy of Ishida's sewing spree, and the three headed to breakfast together.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

"Hoooo…" Ikkaku looked around the underground training cavern, eyebrows raised. "Who the hell makes something like this?"

"At least it's just empty space above here." Ichigo landed lightly behind Renji and Ikkaku. "The one under Geta-boshi's shop has got to violate the building codes."

The vice-captain snorted in aggreement. "So, what're we doing that you need to train against a bankai for?"

Ichigo reached across his face with his left hand, and _pulled_. In front of him, both shinigami stiffened, hands automatically landing on the hilts of their swords. They had both been present for the Espada lecture, and had seen his image with the mask on several times. The visuals, however, did not prepare them for the real thing. Ichigo's reiatsu, constantly flowing gently around them like a warm ocean current, turned darker, more powerful, and unmistakably hollow-like. Decades of training and every instinct they had told them that at their backs was an enemy, and urged them to attack instantaneously.

As one, they forced themselves to relax their grips without drawing. As they turned, Renji muttered, "Warn a guy, will ya?"

"Sorry." They couldn't read his facial expressions anymore, and it was a little hard to hear emotions in his echoing tones, but they got the distinct impression that he wasn't particularly repentant. "I didn't show you guys the rest of the fight with Ulquiorra."

That instantly got their attention. Speculation had been running rampant through the more junior captains and the vice-captains about what had actually happened. Most of the upper ranks were aware that Yamamoto and his vice-captain, at the least, had observed Ulquiorra's defeat. Unlike most of the rest of the footage of Ichigo, however, the only copy of that fight in Soul Society resided with Yamamoto, who had declined to release it.

"You gonna show us?" Ikkaku asked.

"No." Ichigo's voice was flat again as he walked past them towards the center of the room. "Not ever. And I don't have the projector anyway; Renji thought it'd get broken." Behind him, Renji shook his head at Ikkaku and mouthed 'tell you later'.

Ichigo continued, "After he hit me in the chest with a Cero, I went berserk, hollowified completely, and ripped him apart."

Renki raised a tattooed brow. "…and?"

"I need to do that again. Without going crazy. So I need to train."

"You want to become a _hollow_?" Renji asked incredulously.

Ikkaku shrugged, more sanguine about the prospect than anyone not currently in the Eleventh would likely be. "His is OK. I've hardly ever seen Taicho that cheerful. If you did it 'cause of a Cero to the chest, though, I dunno if we're gonna be able to help."

"I _don't_ want to become a hollow." Ichigo didn't have any problems about admitting that- the avatars of his power were correct. Really, who would? "The old man thinks that might change if I need the power from my resurreccion badly enough. I'll only be using my mask- I won't release my sword."

"Last time you said a resurreccion was like a bankai, right?" Ikkaku unsheathed his sword and slammed it against the end of its scabbard. "Grow, Hozukimaru!"

"Howl, Zabimaru!" Renji's blade extended into segments as, next to him, Ikkaku's sword lengthened into the naginata of its initial shikai form.

"Kind of. The power-up is the same, anyway. You ready?" Ichigo got into a guarding stance in preparation.

"Does that mean that when you pull on your mask, it's like when you release your shikai?" the third seat continued his line of thought.

Ichigo turned his sword, permanently in the first release, and let the light flash off it in illustration. "How the hell would I know?"

Renji snorted, and Ikkaku shook his head before finishing. "It feels like you got about twice as strong. So you're basically adding the power of another shikai to what you've got without the mask, right?"

Given that when he used his mask in bankai, his power was also at least doubled, Ichigo was pretty sure that wasn't how the math worked. "Not really…"

Renji smirked, getting where Ikkaku was going with his line of thought, and not really listening to Ichigo. "So, twice the power of a shikai, against two bankai."

Ichigo blinked. "Eh?"

In unison, the two men pointed their weapons at him, and their battle auras flared. "BAN-KAI!"

The mask prevented the two men from seeing the shock on Ichigo's face as he stared at Ikkaku and finally put several of Renji's cryptic comments together. However, he didn't have a clue why Ikkaku kept it hidden, or why Renji thought Ikkaku had told him about it. His eyes narrowed, as their respective clouds of wind and dust cleared and he saw the three oversized weapons that comprised Ikkaku's bankai for the _second_ time. Hozukimaru had wielded them in the fight against Ikkaku when he had been under Muramasa's control, just as Zangetsu-no-ossan had once fought against him with the black daito of his younger self. Strangely, Ichigo had never wondered why the spear had altered forms.

Ichigo decided he would never admit he hadn't known. Right now, it would just make the training session more effective.

Ichigo pulled his right hand across his eyes, then felt his mask after his vision darkened. The visor wasn't perched over the eyes like he had thought it would be. "Hey, what does this look like?"

"You're gonna fight us _blind?_" Renji's bankai coiled around him, and Ichigo could feel the skeleton head of the serpent rising high above their heads, preparing to strike.

"Why do people keep asking that? Yes, I've gotta train. What does my mask look like?"

"White, two stripes down, and a new stripe going across where the eyes were," Ikkaku summarized briefly. He began to twirl the giant axe blade with both hands as the other two segments of his bankai spun around him and the carved dragon that Ichigo couldn't see began to slowly fill with red light. '_Lazy bum…'_

Renji knew enough about the limitations of Ikkaku's bankai to take the lead as his friend's spirit pressure began slowly rising. He opened the fight by sending the snake-head directly at Ichigo, who caught the open jaw on his upright sword. Ichigo was pushed halfway across the training grounds before bracing his feet and pushing back against the bared teeth of the serpent.

As the dragon on Ikkaku's weapon reached a quarter of the way full, Renji withdrew his snake and sent it whipping towards Ichigo from the side, forcing him to jump back repeatedly as the skull forcibly knocked the rocks of the training room aside to follow its target.

"You just gonna keep on dancing, Ichigo?" Renji yelled mockingly. In response, Ichigo jumped high into the air and sent three black scythes of energy at the joints of the snake following him up, without calling out the attack name. Hihio Zabimaru broke apart into a scattered collection of vertebrae that fell to the ground of the training room with a crash.

The glow at the ends of the fragments was visible through the dust as the bones began to levitate and snap back together. Renji laughed. "That's not gonna work, Ichigo! His joints are connected together by my reiatsu! I intentionally separated the sections to dodge your attack. You can't cut them!"

"I know that, idiot." The echoing voice came from directly behind him. Renji froze, eyes wide. As he began to turn, the blunt edge of Zangetsu came to rest against his neck. "Watch your back."

The shinigami jumped away and sent his bankai at the Vizard now visible through the settling dust. Ichigo timed it carefully, and flash-stepped slightly to the side to grab the red mane of the snake head with his left hand, riding it as he had done in the heat of battle several times already.

"Crazy bastard!" Renji swung Hihio Zabimaru high up into the air to try to dislodge his passenger as Ichigo grunted, almost losing his grip. In response, Ichigo stabbed Zangetsu into the joints between the bones of the snake-head, giving himself two handles instead of just one.

Renji's eyes widened. _'Shit…'_

"Getsuga Tensho!"

The dark energy blast, now named and with considerably more power, sliced through the snake-head, separating the jawbone from the rest of the skull and the skull from the vertebrae. The entire snake collapsed as Ichigo landed lightly on the ground with pieces of bone falling like rain around him. Once again, the snake reformed itself, but this time as the pieces reconnected there was a noticeable lag between the reattachment of the joints. The snake tried to raise itself up, collapsed, then finally managed to begin twisting again as the front part raised itself slightly above Renji's head.

Ichigo frowned behind the mask. "What's wrong?"

Rather than answer, the redhead sent the snake after Ichigo once more. Ichigo dodged the strike, which was slower now that half of the snake couldn't raise itself off the ground, and struck at the joint two vertebrae below the head. It cleaved apart, and the head lay on the ground with pink sparks connecting it and the still-mobile body. Instead of levitating the head of the snake to reconnect it, Renji whipped the body towards the disconnected head, physically connecting them. With a pull, Hihio Zabimaru came back to coil around him as he stood in the center, breathing heavily.

"Is this just the second time you've used it?" Ichigo thought back; Renji had fought Byakuya, and had just gotten out of the hospital three days ago… it probably was. In the future, the vice-captain had clearly done some serious training before being stationed in the living world.

"So what?" Renji was still sweating from the effort it had taken to use his reiatsu to reconstruct the snake.

Ichigo turned from him to the third-seat waiting patiently. Ikkaku had never been a man to interfere in a one-on-one fight. "You'll be able to control it longer eventually, and you'll be able to fire an energy cannon and use the reiatsu between the joints to tie stuff up. Sorry."

"We're not finished!" Stung at the implication that he had been overestimated, Renji managed to send Hihio Zabimaru forward one more time. Ichigo didn't even bother to use his sword to block, just caught one of the fangs in his hands and braced himself. He grunted, straining against the pressure, before hauling the head to the side and slamming it onto the ground.

"Take a breather, Renji." Ikkaku pointed the weapons in his hands at Ichigo. "I'm almost glad you found out. I've wanted to try this since I heard you'd gotten Bankai."

"So why didn't you use it in our first fight? You'd have won easily then." Ichigo knew Ikkaku had thought he was going to die, but still hadn't fully released his sword. That took determination. Or stupidity.

"'Cause it's a secret. Obviously. Otherwise I'd go around telling people about it, and then they'd want to promote me or something." Ikkaku charged at Ichigo, swinging both the oversized guan dao in his left hand and the spade in his right at Ichigo, who caught the weapons on the blade of his sword. They strained at each other for a second before Ikkaku smirked and flared his reiatsu, pushing forward.

Ichigo's eyes behind his sightless mask opened in an involuntary gesture of surprise as the edges of Ikkaku's weapons began to cut into the edge of Zangetsu. _'Shit!'_ He instantly disengaged and jumped back, but Ikkaku had been expecting the movement and jumped after him with a yell, swinging the polearm in his left hand and catching Ichigo on the face with a glancing blow.

Ichigo flew back, eyes tightly shut, as the upper left quarter of his mask shattered. He landed in a crouching position, one knee on the ground. _'Lots of destructive power in his weapons, and more reiatsu, but no greater speed or defensive ability.'_ He felt Ikkaku flying in at him from above, both weapons pointing downwards, and swung Zangetsu at him one-handed with his eyes still closed.

"Getsuga Tensho!"

Ikkaku swatted the energy blast away with the spade, but the trajectory of his jump was changed enough that he landed a fair distance away from Ichigo. They paused, facing each other, gauging the damage to their opponent and themselves.

Ichigo spoke first. "Feels like your blades are brittle." The last Getsuga had taken a chunk out of the spade Ikkaku used to block it.

"Yours is looking a little chewed on too. And that mask ain't invulnerable either. What's the time limit on it again?"

Ichigo ripped his left hand across his face, and the mask reformed completely. "What time limit?"

They charged at each other, clashing repeatedly and driving each other back and forth across the training grounds. Both men were wielding their ridiculously oversized weapons without apparent effort. Ichigo found Ikkaku to be just as fast when using his bankai as when he was just fighting with a sword and scabbard. He did not try to catch the blades with his own again, and instead turned or deflected the strikes with his own sword and retaliated when he could. Soon, both men were covered with a dozen small cuts, and Ichigo knew better than to let up the pressure of the fight so that Ikkaku could heal the cut streaming blood into his left eye.

In the back of his mind, he fleetingly recognized the irony of their current positions- his mask protected him from the cuts to the face that had plagued him in their first fight, and even if blood were to cover his eyes it could no longer hamper his vision. As the thought occurred to him, however, he reached the limit of his ability to sense the area around him, more than twenty minutes after he had blocked out his vision, and the world disappeared.

He grunted as Ikkaku landed the first serious wound of the fight, a slashing cut to the torso that glanced off of his rib cage and kept going to lay his right arm open to the bone. Ichigo instantly flash-stepped back blind, but what had worked with Soi Fon the day before in a bare training hall failed him now. He tripped over a rock, flew head-over-heels to land in a sprawled heap across the training grounds from Ikkaku, and got go his knees groaning.

"HIKOTSU TAIHO!"

Ichigo turned towards the voice in shock and raised his sword, still blind, barely in time to shield himself from the brunt of the Baboon Bone Cannon. He flew backwards as Renji whipped his considerably-shortened bankai after him.

The snake-head caught Ichigo in mid-air with an audible crunch. His left arm snapped from the impact of the two front left fangs, and the right upper fang was pierced through Ichigo's stomach. His legs and his right arm, still with a death-grip on Zangetsu, were pointed down the snake's throat.

"Shouldn't have told me I could do that," Renji called, clearly exhausted despite the long minutes of rest he had gotten while waiting for the opening. "The snake's still got a grudge against Zangetsu. The monkey too. They're holding us together."

"What the hell are you doing?" Ikkaku snapped furiously.

"Shaddup. This ain't a fight for pride," Renji growled back. "The point's to beat him down 'till he can't take it anymore. Think you can handle your part now?"

"Dunno if he's gonna be able to keep-" Ikakku cut himself off and turned back to the center of the training grounds as Ichigo spoke.

"Getsuga… Tensho." The energy blast from the sword pointed down Hihio Zabimaru's throat shattered the jaw once more. As the snake-head shattered once more, the skull, the vertebrae, and the teen still pierced between the fangs fell to the ground. Renji hissed at the pull on his power, and finally left Bankai, completely drained. He sat on the nearest outcropping of rock to watch the fight finish. Neither of them questioned that it would continue. Ichigo was, after all, still conscious.

Ichigo staggered to his feet, leaning on his sword, as the fangs inside of him disappeared. The energy blast had shattered part of his mask, exposing his chin and mouth. Blood was streaming from the hole through his stomach and from the cut in his right arm and torso, and his left arm hung at his side, mangled and useless. He raised his sword singlehandedly into a guarding position.

"You think you can win like this, Ichigo?" Ikkaku raised his own weapons, considerably more chipped than they had been at the beginning of the fight, but still quite functional. "What was it that one guy said? Something like 'you got the crap beaten out of you by the other guy, and I'm stronger than him. You're dead.' It's still true. And that mask of yours ain't gonna last much longer. If you've got anything left, better pull it out now."

Ichigo coughed up a mouthful of blood. "I _said…"_

It was _Renji and Ikkaku. _

"…_what _time limit?"

They were friendly rivals, training partners, friends.

"The mask, Nnoitra…"

They'd stood and would have stood against the entire Seireitei for him.

"…they're not the things about those fights you should be remembering."

They'd trusted that he was doing the right thing even if they didn't understand what or why.

"What you should be remembering…"

He'd fight beside them. He'd die with them. He'd never regret a minute of it.

"… is that all of those fights…"

But _fuck_ if he was going to lose to them.

"... _happened months ago._"

He _reached._ He _pulled._ His hollow's howls of glee echoed within his mind as his battle aura flared around him. For the first time he called on a power he'd never touched consciously.

The mangled arm at his side twisted and snapped into place, healing completely. The blood dripping down his torso and from his arm stopped and the cuts sealed smoothly without a scar.

The hollow's laughter turned to a scream of frustration as Ichigo jerked his left hand across his face, repairing his mask once more.

Ikkaku and Renji stared in disbelief as he raised Zangetsu once more, both hands on the hilt, the only evidence that he'd been fighting them at all the chips in the blade of his sword and the drying blood on his arms and ripped shihakusho.

"…that's just unfair." Renji was out of the fight and knew it, but stood up anyway, with Zabimaru still in Shikai in his right hand.

"High-speed regeneration, huh?" Ikkaku grinned, raising his polearms once more. "If you win this fight, I'll do you a favor and not mention that to Taicho. He'd never leave you alone."

"What do you mean, _if_?" Ichigo faced him across the training ground for a frozen moment. At an unseen signal, they flash-stepped towards each other for one final pass, and blurred into stillness on the opposite ends of the clearing from where they had started.

Ichigo grunted, leaning on his sword with one hand at his side. The cut had passed between his hips and ribcage. Under his hand, the wound sealed.

Ikkaku stumbled, unharmed. The hilts of his two polearms stayed in his hands as the blades dropped, cut cleanly below the bases in a single strike, exactly where Ichigo had aimed. '_Shit…_'

Ichigo dissolved his mask, and opened his eyes to daylight for the first time since they had begun. "Thanks for the fight. There's a hot spring in the rocks behind you. The water in it heals minor wounds."

Ikkaku sighed, dropping out of bankai and sealing his spear back into a katana. In the back of his mind, he felt Hozukimaru grumble as the dragon curled up and went back to sleep. "That's useful. You coming, Renji?"

Renji shook his head. He had not attacked Ichigo with anything but his bankai, and was unscratched since Ichigo had turned his blade the single time he had struck at Renji directly. "I'm gonna get back to the Sixth. I'll see you both tonight."

"Ichigo?"

"Gotta talk to the old man. I'll get the blood off in a few minutes." Ichigo raised his hand in farewell as Renji flash-stepped up into the air rather than attempt the ladder leading to the entrance, despite his exhaustion. Ikkaku nodded and headed in the direction Ichigo had indicated as Ichigo sat on a convenient outcropping of rock.

Ichigo opened his eyes onto a sunny day. As he saw the white fist headed for his face he flash-stepped back, his reflexes still singing from combat. "That's not gonna work twice. What's your problem?"

"IDIOT!"

"His 'problem', Ichigo, is that you chose to heal yourself rather than enter Resurreccion." His sword was in his customary position on top of a nearby flagpole.

"_Chose?_ I didn't even know what I was doing!" Ichigo snapped back defensively.

"You followed your instinct! That's what it _means _to be a hollow!" The pale teen had subsided after his first attack, but his sword was still unwrapped in his hand. Ichigo wasn't sure he remembered that they couldn't hurt each other with them anymore.

The boy continued, "You reached your power, and then you didn't fight with it! You just healed yourself!"

"I _can_ heal now, though," Ichigo pointed out. "That was your problem when we split up, wasn't it? There's not gonna be much that can injure us anyway, and we'll heal any damage we do take."

"And when we're combined we won't be able to use anything else. Because you're _scared._" The word dripped with all of the scorn the hollow could stuff into his doubled tones.

"I'm _not _scared. It was just the first try."

"Instant regeneration will make an attempt to force you into complete hollowification almost impossible." The zanpakuto's tone was expressionless. "With just your mask on, you approach the power of a bankai. The addition of high-speed regeneration means you will be able to survive long enough to outlast most of the final releases of both shinigami and arrancar."

In Ichigo's opinion, that pretty much solved the problem of involuntary hollowification. He was smart enough not to say so, however. He could picture the lectures on fighting instinct and fighting with all his strength that he'd get from _both_ of them. "So when this is over I'll find Ulquiorra again or something. He might even find me. He'll probably want revenge for Aizen."

"That is… a possible solution," Zangetsu-no-ossan agreed neutrally. "Until then, attempt meditation. It may have an effect now that you have consciously used your hollow powers."

"It'll take more than that to wake up his fighting instinct," the hollow sneered. "Because of this, even a sword through the stomach ain't gonna work."

Ichigo rolled his eyes as settled into the meditation position once again. Except for the fact that he couldn't use his bankai until he had hollowified, he really didn't have a problem with that.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

After lunch, Yoruichi stood with Ichigo at the entrance to a white maze of hallways interspersed with periodic doors. She handed Ichigo a thin metal circle. "Here. A typical kido-based monitor, probably pretty close to what Aizen's got in Las Noches. Make sure you can recognize the feel of them. Once you're within range of the spell, it will transmit your movements to an identical plate at a central station; Soi Fon's at ours right now. After you find her she'll let us know where you screwed up."

Ichigo felt the plate, then extended his reiatsu senses down the closest corridor. "The ceilings of the corridors. There are… six of them in this one."

"Good. The limitations are that the kido doesn't pass through walls, and that they're motion sensors. If there's movement within the range of the sensor, the monitoring station generally switches to the view from that circle automatically. However, there hasn't been a motion sensor yet that can pick up flash-step. If you can move too fast to see, you can move too fast for the sensors to detect, as long as you don't _stop _within the range of one." She took the monitor back and shoved him into the doorway.

"Are there any safe places to stop?" Ichigo extended his senses as far as they would go through the maze, finding Soi Fon's spirit pressure near the center. She was doing double duty as the judge and the target; he would be homing in on her reiatsu in practice for following Aizen's.

"Figure that out yourself, kid," the shapeshifter answered, grinning. Ichigo grimaced and began flash-stepping through the maze, taking twists and turns that let him in the general direction of Soi Fon's monitoring station. He paused once inside of a small room without any monitors that he could sense, catching his breath after the sequence of short flash-steps, before heading onwards.

Finally, he reached the center. Soi Fon barely glanced up as she manipulated the monitor to call up several places where Ichigo had been caught on camera. "Pathetic, Kurosaki. You pause for far too long between steps, particularly when choosing directions. Do not hesitate. Go to a different entrance, and try again."

Ichigo sighed and flashed out without saying a word. It was going to be a long afternoon.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

As the three left the mock-up of Las Noches, Yoruichi waved Soi Fon on ahead and grabbed Ichigo's shirt before he could flash-step away. "Hang on a second. We need to talk."

Ichigo followed her as she walked into the woods and settled onto a tree stump. "What's up?"

"You know I saw your father last night, right?"

"Yeah."

"Have you thought at all about what your family thinks about all of this?" Yoruichi was regretting starting the conversation already, she'd never been good with heart-to-heart talks…

"I know being away from home can't be great, but it won't be for much longer," Ichigo answered, confused. "Are they OK?"

"Yeah, they're fine, he's just…" dammit, she wasn't going to get anywhere like this. "Isshin is pretty sure he never told you about being a shinigami. Is that right?"

"It's fine," Ichigo told her. "If he had a good reason, he'll tell me about it eventually."

Yoruichi blinked. She'd expected some irritation, not calm acceptance. "O..kay. You might want to let him know that. Just because they'd know anything you have to say doesn't mean you shouldn't say it anyway. It's not just your father. Your sisters would like to hear from you too."

Ichigo shrugged. "Sure. Unohana-san will probably let me borrow her cell phone. What time is it in Karakura now?"

Crap. She'd _known_ this was a bad idea. No-one was sure how Isshin felt about the monitoring, but the girls and Chad would tell Ichigo he was being spied on the second they were in contact with him. "The phone was meant for Unohana's use only. I doubt you'll be able to pry it away from her. But I'm heading back to Kisuke's tomorrow morning to pick up some stuff he's made for these simulations. I can take any messages you have, or any memories you want to share."

Ichigo froze suddenly. "Through the Senkaimon?"

"How else?"

"Be careful. Inoue was kidnapped when she was heading back to the living world from Soul Society. They're not secure." How the _hell_ had he forgotten?

Yoruichi's golden eyes narrowed. "Huh. I wonder how they manage that. I'll let the right people know, but I'd pity anyone who tried to kidnap _me_."

As he thought more about it, Ichigo couldn't help but agree. "I'll put something together for the girls before you go."

"If you've got any memories of Isshin acting like a responsible adult, include those too," Yoroichi suggested.

"That'll be harder."

"Try anyway." She flash-stepped away.

Ichigo sighed, pulling out the memory projector and flicking it to 'record'. "Like he's ever acted like a responsible adult." With no one around to ask questions or narrate to, he just let the memories flow.

/ _Glad cries of welcome as he stepped into the house for the first time in a month, grateful to be home despite his injuries._/

/_ "I want to know why Ichi-nii's hurting."_/

/ _ They crept into his room as he drifted in and out of consciousness and ate dinner next to his bed, and Karin tried to cheer Yuzu up with a story about a recent victory in a soccer game, and the boy who had played with her, with white hair and green eyes._/

To fulfill a promise, he remembered a fireworks display that he'd never seen the equal of in the living world.

/ _"What's the occasion?"_

"_The birth of a boy and twin girls to the Shiba family. You'd better be there, Shinigami."_

"_I'll send the memory to my sisters."_/

Finally, he turned his mind to the parts of the fight with Aizen he had not shown the Shinigami.

/_ "Think carefully about why Aizen went to Karakura Town within Soul Society. If you don't go, then not just the people you want to protect, but everyone in Karakura will die by his hands."_

"_Dad… open the Senkaimon."_

_The older man looked at him in askance._

"…_I don't need you to tell me to do that."_/

The instruction for Jinzen and his sword's final attack.

/_ "In a place like this I'll be able to teach you."_

"_Teach me what?"_

"_The final Getsuga Tensho."_/

And, as the last memory, the one that had come first.

/_ "You aren't mistaking me for anyone else. No matter how hard you look."_

"…_so it seems."_

"_I know you probably have a million questions. We'll put them all together and-"_

"_I don't. I have nothing to ask. If you didn't tell me up until now, you probably had a reason. And that's your problem. I don't know how to ask about that. I don't know a good way to ask without trampling over and putting shame to your feelings. That's why I'll wait. Until you feel like you want to tell me. Until you feel like it's alright to tell me. Until then, you don't need to."_/

More than two hours after she had left him, he found Yoruichi, and pressed the record into her hand. As he walked away, he called out over his shoulder, "Tell him it's still true."

The next day Isshin and his daughters would watch the transmission. By general agreement, none of the rest of the occupants of the warehouse would be around. And the girls would watch their father walk away, eyes glistening, for once completely silent.

"…daddy…"

"Not bad, old man."

It didn't last.

"MASAKI! OUR SON DOESN'T HATE ME! I'M A GOOD FATHER!"

"… idiot."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Rukia glanced up from her dinner as the noise in the dining room of the Thirteenth quieted significantly. Seeing the familiar orange hair, she raised a hand so that Ichigo could see her past the shoulders of the group of unseated shinigami surrounding her. The chatter picked up again as he came across the room towards her, and Rukia narrowed her eyes at several groups of women glancing over at him and whispering behind their hands.

The calendar had gone on sale at the beginning of the day, and, with the free publicity from rumors still being swapped between the divisions, the noble houses, and the academy, the first small printing had sold out before lunch. Matsumoto had convinced Hisagi Shuuhei to use the presses in the Ninth to print a rapid second run, which was moving off the shelves just as quickly. If they stayed in the mess hall, it would be just a matter of time before some idiot came up to ask for an autograph.

Rukia finished the final bite of her meal and met him halfway. They exchanged greetings as she brought her tableware to the front of the room, and had moved halfway down the hall before she asked why he had come.

"The meeting in an hour is gonna be mostly about some kids you were taking care of in the Rukongai a long time ago," Ichigo answered. "I thought I should let you know about them before anyone else."

Rukia frowned. "Everyone I ran with in the Seventy-eighth is dead, except for Renji. We came to the Academy together."

Ichigo winced. "Yeah, the kids are also dead. That was kind of the problem. They'd been merged with a hollow that possessed people and stole their memories, so you forgot them. The kids didn't forget about you and came back. You'd promised to give them names."

Rukia was now even more confused. "… maybe if you started from the beginning?" She glanced around, trying to think of a place where they would have some privacy without going all the way to the Kuchiki mansion. "Ukitake-taicho may allow us to use his garden."

The captain was still catching up on work from the previous day, and had not left his office. Upon hearing Rukia's request, he gave them permission to use it, and then added, "You may also join us at the meeting, if you desire."

"Excuse me, Taicho?" Rukia wasn't sure that she would be welcome at a meeting for the captains and vice-captains.

"Kenpachi-taicho has been including his men, and has set something of a precedent," Ukitake explained. "Kiyone and Sentaro will also be joining me, and I have invited the third seat of the Fifth. With Aizen's betrayal and Hinamori still unconscious, I'm afraid they've been left out of the loop. Their morale has been terrible."

Rukia bowed. "Thank you very much, Taicho!"

She and Ichigo went into the garden, and he leaned against a tree next to the small koi pond as she sat on the bank. Ichigo decided to show mostly the more personal stuff, rather than what he was about to show in the meeting. She stilled at the projected image, of a familiar hillside where too many friends lay buried. Her double, clad in a kimono rather than a uniform, stood behind a scythe-wielding young man with dark hair and next to a pale blond girl with striking green eyes. As Ichigo's image, with a little stuffed lion sitting on his shoulder, demanded answers from the two strangers, Rukia strode forward to confront them.

/ "_Who in the world are you? How do you know my name?"_

"_What about me? You remember me, don't you, Nee-san?" the lion wailed._

"_Silence, you strange creature!"_/

"How strange that I would forget Kon."

"Just Kon?"

"You are entirely forgettable," she answered loftily.

"Brat." Ichigo let the images continue as Rukia's double suddenly clutched her head and curled up in pain. The young man attacked Ichigo while the girl transported her surrogate sister away, and Ichigo ended the projection. "Do you remember them?"

"No. Seeing their faces… I feel as though I should, but nothing else."

"For Renji, it took a while. It might come if you went back to where the hollow attacked you three."

Ichigo skipped forward to the confrontation between the children and Ichigo. Rukia's grip on her uniform tightened at seeing the three of them fuse and attack Ichigo as he avoided striking back at them. Her pale double displayed more speed and power then she had ever hoped to wield. As Ichigo's image dodged and blocked, she could not help but remember the first time she had seen him, when he had clumsily attempted to attack a hollow with a baseball bat.

/ "_That man… we must reap that man's memories. Then no one will be able to remember Rukia any more."_

"_That's it. Then we will be the only ones Rukia cares for." Both voices came from the same being._

"_You lunatics!" _/

Her eyes widened as her brother appeared just in time to save Ichigo's neck from the scythe.

/ _"Byakuya!"_

"_If what you said was true, then I should be the one to finish this."_/

"Nii-sama…" Rukia bowed her head in thanks. "He is an honorable man."

"You're both crazy," Ichigo informed her. The scene continued around them as Ichigo asked the captain of the Sixth to allow him to take a final attempt. Rukia froze at his final act, her hand involuntarily rising to her chest, while in front of her Ichigo's black daito went cleanly through the heart of her double.

The surroundings returned to the peaceful koi pond as they both remembered a hollow on a dark night, the plea of his younger sister, a final desperate attempt to save all of their lives. Finally, Rukia spoke. "There was never a debt. I did you a disservice. I destroyed any chance you had of a normal existence forever."

Ichigo snorted, thinking of final techniques and a road not travelled. "Trust me, I could go back to the normal life if I wanted to. I don't think I'd like it much. I'm not sure I could enjoy having peace until I die."

"You might have been able to, once." Rukia sighed. "What happened to the children?"

Ichigo raised the projector once more, and they watched the final goodbye.

/ "_I remembered your names. You're Homura and Shizuku. Back-to-back, you shine brightly… together."_/

As Rukia's image screamed into the sky over their dead bodies, Ichigo ended the projection.

Rukia sat in silence, trying to remember two children she had obviously loved. Finally, she shook her head. "Nothing."

"It'll come." Ichigo glanced up at the sliding door to Ukitake's quarters. "Looks like he's ready to go. You still coming?"

"I would not dare miss it." Before they joined her captain, she paused. "Your cousins taught me that some debts can only be paid forward. If you cannot accept that I do not need repayment, remember that the actions you take are my responsibility, and live your life well."

"That was almost profound, midget."

"It is the accumulation of my far greater experience, cretin." The conversation turned down well-travelled paths as they walked across the bridge to join the waiting shinigami.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

In the first division, Ichigo opened the meeting by giving a brief summary of the disaster from the explosion in the Research and Development Institute and Mayuri's and Rukia's memory loss.

"The problem was a couple of weird hollows that used to be kids that Rukia took care of when she was in the Rukongai. They erased Mayuri's memories, but he's got a copy of his memories in an artificial brain so everyone else could still remember him."

Mayuri sniffed at the incredulous looks he was getting from the rest of the room. As Kurosaki had just shown, it was a perfectly reasonable precaution.

"Since he couldn't remember anything, though, he went nuts and destroyed his lab. It released some kind of weird living-spirit-particle sludge that buried a third of the city." The image showed Ichigo standing with Hisagi and a group of shinigami from the Ninth as giant worm-like creatures rising from the advancing white ooze attacked them.

Yamamoto decided that an audit of the current experiments at the RDI was in order.

"Rukia didn't have her memories stored or anything, so she forgot everyone and everyone forgot she existed. Except for my Gikon, for some weird reason. I remembered her after a few hours, and went to Geta-boshi's to figure out what was going on. He didn't remember her either, but he had his records. All of the physical stuff was still there. That's one of the reasons Byakuya started believing me, since she was still registered as part of the Kuchiki family."

/ _"I see I've got her name down right here," the shopkeeper murmured._

"_See?"_

"_But I'm sorry… I really don't remember her."_/

"That is unfortunate for Kuchiki, Kurosaki, but memories about an unseated officer are not critical to the Seireitei. We need to know how to stop the spirit particles from spreading if the explosion happens again," Soi Fon said coldly.

"Me telling you how won't help- that's the problem. If this happens again, you won't remember me telling you how. You didn't just forget her. You forgot _everything_ she had been involved with. She made me a shinigami, so no one knew me." Their surroundings turned to a street in the Seireitei, and Komamura blinked to see himself jump in front of Kurosaki's image.

/ _"You're not getting away!"_/

A group of shinigami led by Renji and Hisagi ran up from the street at back of the room, and the projected Ichigo chose to retreat rather than fight them. Komamura's image went into Bankai, and his massive samurai swung at the boy in the air. Komamura winced as he noted that his image's attacks were doing considerable damage to the already-battered Seireitei. The fight continued until the black-clad boy released a barrage of energy scythes at the figure swatting at him. As the giant fell, his final strike took Ichigo's image unaware, and they both plummeted.

"Renji trained to reach the final release to save her, so he forgot he'd gotten there."

Kuchiki Byakuya's eyes narrowed as the surroundings turned to a darkened evening in a very familiar garden.

/ _"BAN-KAI!" The night exploded into wind and blue light. "What's keeping you, Renji?"_

"_Damn it!"_

"_Aren't you going to use your bankai?"_

"_Me… use bankai?"_

_The vice-captain attacked repeatedly in the first release and was effortlessly batted away as his opponent demanded he remember what he was capable of. As he flew away the final time, the man in black turned to face the owner of the mansion._

"_Scatter…" They stood across from each other for a frozen moment. There was no fear in either man's eyes. _

"…_Hisana was from Inuzuri in Southern Rukongai, District 78."_

"_Thanks." The surroundings blurred around him as he flashed away._/

Rather than speak again, Ichigo shifted the surroundings back to a scene that most of the people present had already viewed.

/_"Oh, yes, Kuchiki Rukia. When you were discovered in the world of the living, the first thing I did was eliminate the Central 46."_/

"Their desertion happened because Rukia was supposed to be executed, so you forgot you were at war."

"And we didn't notice that we were missing three captains?" Hitsugaya asked skeptically.

"Kenpachi had tried to stop Mayuri and was stuck under his sludge. As far as I know, you thought the same thing had happened to the other three."

"Did Aizen make any moves during this period?" Yamamoto's focus was on the greater threat, that of a potential attack while they were unaware should Aizen find the hollow-children and use them early.

"No. I don't know what he remembered, or when he got his memories back. He might not have remembered he had Urahara's Hogyoku."

"Did distance have an effect on the memory loss?" Mayuri asked curiously. He was already planning to hide certain experiments from the audit that would inevitably follow these revelations.

"I…I'm not sure. Urahara-san didn't remember her, but except for the thing with the Hogyoku he might not have had a reason to. I remembered that I was a shinigami- I didn't think anything was weird about Kon being around. I just didn't remember how I'd become one until I fell asleep and started dreaming."

"Possibly distance, possibly Kuchiki's effect on your life, possibly some combination…" Mayuri started speculating about ways to test the effects of the hollows if they were captured as Ichigo continued the projection on the same hill he had shown Rukia earlier, starting with the scythe-wielding boy's attack on him. He continued until they disappeared in order to give the watching shinigami some idea of the hollow-children's capabilities and fighting style.

"The day continued to suck." The scene shifted to images Hitsugaya, Ikkaku, and Yumichika staring down at him from a grouping of rocks as a squad of shinigami surrounded Ichigo and his image. Hitsugaya stepped slightly to the left so that he was not actually standing inside of the image of the squad leader, whom he recognized as his eighth seat.

/ "_You won't escape this time. We're taking you in, ryoka. Don't try to resist!"_ /

As the brief exchange with Ikkaku began, Hitsugaya rubbed his forehead and asked, "Did it ever occur to you to simply surrender and explain what was going on, Kurosaki?"

Ichigo scratched his head. "…no. Why, do you think you'd have listened?"

The observers watched resignedly (and, in Toshiro's case, with considerable satisfaction) as the youngest captain's image took over the fight and hit his opponent with a high-level binding kido. Ichigo was actually standing _within_ the tree his image was bound to, and couldn't see Renji's interception of Hitsugaya's ice attack. Annoyed, he skipped forward a few minutes. The images of Yamamoto and his two students watched impassively as Soi Fon ordered the Onmitsukido to move in, and the true observers looked up in shock as they were intercepted by Benihime's red light.

/ _"Long time no see, Captain-commander."_

"_How did you manage to return?"_

"_Oh, I've always known how."_/

"And it would've been nice if that had stayed secret," Yoruichi remarked dryly from the back of the room. Ichigo shrugged in apology.

"Urahara-san let you guys know what was going on while Renji and I went after Rukia. Renji started getting his memories of Rukia back when we were in the Rukongai."

"Familiar surroundings," Mayuri muttered, adding the information to his mental notes… which he would be backing up tonight as soon as he went to his lab.

"I was defending you even though I didn't remember you?" Renji asked, bewildered.

"You remembered in your gut. And I think you'd talked to your sword- when stuff started exploding you were able to go into Bankai." The scene shifted to one of Ichigo and Renji riding on the giant snake as sections of the Seireitei fell down around them. "We followed Rukia's spirit ribbon to where the kids had taken her."

Everyone familiar with the vice-captain of the Sixth, including Renji himself, concluded that the 'we' referred solely to Ichigo. To find a particular spirit ribbon, particularly in the high-reiryoku environment of the Seireitei, was an advanced technique that Renji had never shown a great deal of aptitude for. The scene shifted to the children's fusion with their surrogate big sister and Dark Rukia's subsequent activation of the mechanism in Mayuri's lab that released the spirit particles that had overrun Seireitei.

Ichigo let the fight run once more, and they watched as ichigo's image danced around the lightning-fast scythe without retaliating, yelling at Rukia to take control. As his image fired off a high-level binding kido, Kuchiki Byakuya noted the minute expression on his own face as he first saw the little sister he could not remember, and realized that he was comparing her appearance once again to that of his dead wife. As the illusionary nobleman stepped up to do his final duty as the head of the Kuchiki family, the boy behind him intervened.

/ "_She sacrificed her own life in order to protect mine and my family's. She risked everything for me. I refuse to give up."_

"_Do as you will."_ /

Byakuya sighed slightly. Declining to attack him in his garden, allowing him to interfere in his final duty… apparently, he hadn't found the boy nearly as irritating when he couldn't remember their first set of meetings.

For the first time in that fight, Ichigo's image retaliated, and the final pass ended with Ichigo's sword through Dark Rukia's heart, accompanied by the strangled cries of half the room. The screams of the hollow that originally had possessed the children echoed in the observer's ears as the surroundings around the images exploded.

"You crazy-" Renji began, incensed, before being interrupted by his captain.

"Silence, Renji. If he had failed, both would have died. He repaid his debt."

The images that followed showed Byakuya and Renji destroy the building with the out-of-control mechanism that was covering the Seireitei. Urahara arrived as Rukia ran to where her former charges lay.

/ _"But when I came to, you were both gone… and then I forgot…"_

"_That's probably because the hollow reaped your memories." The former captain of the Twelfth approached her from the side. "And additionally, these two have a special ability that allows them to teleport. I think they place the hollow inside of themselves just before they died so they could protect you. When the hollow realized that it had accidentally possessed a pair of dead children, it probably panicked and ran back to Hueco Mundo. But while there, they took control of the hollow, and then came back because of their strong desire to see you again."_/

Ichigo ended the projection there. "Once he'd gotten his memories back, Mayuri knew how to dissolve the stuff, so you got the trapped people out from under the gunk pretty quickly. There actually weren't too many fatalities, but I think most people gave their share of the cleanup to the Fourth."

"What were their names?" Isane asked quietly. Rather than answer, Ichigo looked at where Rukia was standing behind her captain.

"The girl was Homura. The boy was Shizuku." Rukia's voice was as low as Isane's had been, but was still clearly audible throughout the room. "I cannot remember them yet. In time, I hope that will change."

"Well, this is simple enough to prevent," Mayuri announced. "I will make a duplicate of the girl's brain as well, so no one will forget her when they come. They will be caught easily."

The room fell completely silent. Ishida, watching from the back of the room, experimentally pulled out one of his sewing pins and listened as it dropped to the floor. Rukia was visibly nauseated at the suggestion, and the stillness was finally broken by the shift of metal against wood as both Byakuya's and Ukitake's hands fell onto the hilts of their swords.

"Your willingness to contribute is appreciated, Kurotsuchi-taicho," Yamamoto rumbled, "but we will explore less extreme alternatives first. A trap can be put in place on the appropriate day."

"A foolish proposition." Mayuri had never been one to care about lèse-majesté. "The timeline has been changed, and the effects will be felt in Hueco Mundo long before the time they would have come here. Because those children died a century ago, the sequence of events has begun, but there is no guarantee that they will arrive on the same day, or even in the same year. It is a simple operation, and regular updates will ensure that there is very little information lost."

"It would be more prudent to eliminate the machine that caused the damage," Byakuya stated coolly. "If the Seireitei had not been buried under spirit particles, the intrusion of an unknown warrior would not have caused the alarm it did."

"There are a dozen things they could have used," Mayuri snapped. "Be grateful the one they chose was relatively nonfatal!"

Yamamoto decided to make that audit a priority. "Nevertheless, that particular machine will be eliminated, and a trap will be set. Kurosaki, when you return from Hueco Mundo, I will provide you with a letter of introduction. If the trap fails, it will inform me where in the records to look for the information you have shown us, and will give you the authority to commandeer aid to hunt them down."

Ichigo blinked, mildly surprised that he was being given that much official power, even under the limited circumstances. "OK."

"Dismissed!"

Ichigo had learned from past experience that the order did not include him, and said good-night to his friends as they filed out.

Just before the gate of the first division, after the crowd had broken into little clumps murmuring quietly in the torchlit night as they prepared to travel back to their respective divisions and homes, Soi Fon called out to Ishida and Orihime. Unohana and Isane stopped as well to wait for them.

"Yes, Soi Fon-san?" Orihime asked her politely.

"The… unusually personable artificial soul that Kurosaki called Kon. The one in the stuffed lion. Have you seen him use it before?"

At her words, the night became quiet enough to hear the crickets chirping. Rukia, walking with her brother and Renji directly ahead of them, froze. Byakuya turned his head back slightly to glance calmly at the scene. Ukitake and Kyoraku, who had been chatting quietly as their subordinates trailed behind them, turned around completely. Behind the group from the Fourth, Hitsugaya narrowed his eyes as Gin and Matsumoto also paused to listen.

"Yes, he used it when-" Ishida stopped himself before the words 'I broke the hollow bait' left his lips. If they weren't going to bring that up, neither was he. "-the Menos Grande attacked Karakura a few weeks ago."

"It is likely the one currently inhabiting his body, then?" The question did nothing to alleviate the tension that suddenly permeated the night air.

Orihime looked around them. "Is something wrong?"

Similar trains of thought were running through the minds of the observers that had recognized what Kon's non-standard-issue personality meant. The mod-souls had been ordered to be terminated. It would be pure foolishness for Kurosaki to stand against an army for a piece of Soul Candy that he clearly considered to be annoying. However, no-one was willing to wager that he would _not_… and Soi Fon was as renowned for her obedience to the rules as Kurosaki Ichigo was becoming for his lack thereof.

"I was merely surprised at the change in personality," Soi Fon answered, a razor-sharp smile on her face. "It was clearly on it's best behavior when we retrieved it from Kurosaki's house."

"Soi Fon-taicho…" Rukia dared to murmur, stepping back with a hand outstretched slightly. Soi Fon cut her off with a disdainful glare, and turned her attention back to the humans.

"Keeping a Gikon in a stuffed animal is eccentric, but not illegal. Everything Kurosaki showed… Kon…" and the word was said with dry disdain, "… doing tonight was well within the physical capabilities of any artificial soul."

"Is there a reason it wouldn't be?" Ishida asked for himself and Orihime both, becoming more bewildered by the second.

"No. None at all." Soi Fon walked past them, her confused lieutenant trailing behind her. "Instruct Kurosaki to keep it that way."

The various groups relaxed, grateful that the diminutive captain had bent enough to allow a don't-ask, don't-tell situation to fall into place. Ishida turned to Unohana as they continued out the gate. "What was that about? Is there something wrong with Kurosaki's lion?"

"I have not observed anything unusual, Ishida-san," Unohana answered serenely. "I am quite confident that none of the other captains have either. Perhaps it would be best to address those questions to Kurosaki-san in private."

Ishida adjusted his glasses, intrigued. "…I see."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Back inside the first division, Ichigo faced the ancient man halfway across the meeting room. "Are you going to tell me I should have turned myself in too, Gramps?"

"You were not attacking any of the men attempting to apprehend you. What initially began the conflict?"

Ichigo showed his use of the combined power of his mask and bankai to attempt to fight the sludge-worm. It split down the middle where he cut it and separated around him, but then went on towards the direction of the South Gate as the men from the Ninth surrounded Ichigo's masked form.

"You guys had seen it before. I didn't know the mask would make Hisagi-san freak out," Ichigo explained.

"If we already knew you were partially a hollow, turning yourself in might have made the situation worse." Yamamoto sighed. "If these events occur again, it would be wise to use only your Bankai."

"Sure." If he even _could_ by the time this rolled around… "Do you think you'll listen to your letter?"

"No," the old man answered. "I will not. Handwriting can be forged, records can be planted, even the seal I will put on the letter could have been stolen. The writ I will give you will allow you to ask for any aid you want from the Gotei 13 and have it given to you. It will be an authority many would kill for."

It would be a test of Kurosaki's judgment more than anything else. That much power over others was likely not necessary. Seeing the boy's use of it, however, would be.

"I won't need it, jii-san. Just tell yourself not to hunt me down."

"You will have it anyway. Better to plan for the unexpected." He was silent for a long moment, thinking back through the centuries. He glanced down at the white flecks surrounding the stone in Ichigo's hand, deciding to erase the entire conversation from the record personally. "Yamamoto Kasumi."

"Huh?" Ichigo asked in confusion.

"A password that I would believe. Remember the name."

"…right. Yamamoto Kasumi." Ichigo knew he sucked at remembering names, but 'Kasumi' was common enough that he didn't think it would be a problem. He hesitated, but finally gave in to his curiosity. "Who was she?"

"A good woman. She lived a fulfilling life and died in her sleep, unremarked upon by history. No one else now alive remembers her." Yamamoto's gruff rumble was quieter than Ichigo had ever heard it.

The teenager uncomfortably took the hint and did not ask again. He handed over the evening's record and left the room with a muttered farewell, for the first time finding himself pitying the most powerful man in Soul Society. Ichigo had his family and the friends he had grown up with. Mother, sister, wife, daughter… who the woman had been didn't matter. The old man likely had a dozen names he could have used.

Behind him, Yamamoto walked the short distance to his office and began writing the first draft of the letter they had been discussing. His brush paused as he became aware of a presence in front of him, one that had become familiar in the two days they had waited for Kurosaki to wake up after the treachery.

"Your wielder gives you a great deal of freedom."

"He has need of eyes he can trust."

"Does he? And is he aware that you are here tonight, Zangetsu?"

Ichigo's sword smiled slightly. "No. I have come with a... proposition for you."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

A/N

The scene with Ikkaku and Renji was lots of fun to write. I try not to make Ichigo too kick-ass. Really I do. Then I re-read parts of the manga and that just goes flying out the window. Hopefully it came out as somewhat true to the canon story.

I hope the Fade to Black sequence was more understandable to those who have not seen it than the DD Rebellion scene was. Although I didn't attempt to fit it into the manga continuity, I did extend some of the ideas in the movie to what might have happened if the screenwriters had acknowledged that Aizen existed. The 'you'd forgotten you were at war' bit was not in the movie, but I decided that it's what the shinigami at my meeting would be concerned about.

The next chapter will be up **in two weeks**, sometime on the weekend. (Or, as the pattern seems to be going, very early Monday morning, but I hope to have it up before that). For what I've got planned, I don't want to rush writing it.

The teaser:

"Is that the last of the memories you are going to show us, Kurosaki Ichigo?"

"…yeah. That's… that's everything."

"You sound uncertain."

"Yeah… I just feel like I'm forgetting some-"


	11. Chapter10 Butterflies Causing Hurricanes

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach. I also do not own René Descartes (unless _cogito ergo sum_ is in the public domain, which, come to think of it, it probably is…), closed timelike curves, or the Novikov self-consistency conjecture, all of which are obliquely referred to in this chapter. My primary reference for the chapter was the 2002 popular science book 'The Future of Spacetime', and in particular the essays by Hawking, Novikov, and Thorne. Any inaccuracies are my own.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

**Spoilers:** Up through the Deicide chapters in the manga/anime, and the Memories of Nobody movie for this chapter in particular. However, almost none for the Bount arc although that was nominally in this chapter as well.

Ebonjadethorn: I wasn't actually aware that the Sealed Sword Frenzy existed until you told me about it, so no, I won't be including it. At this point in the story, there's just no place in the outline. Sorry, but thanks for the suggestion!

A new reader** asked the following questions** in a review to the last chapter, and with her permission I've reproduced her review and my reply in case anyone else has had the same ones. If you've got none of these questions (and I do hope that most people understand what's going on in the story!) feel free to skip down to the main section of the chapter.

**The review:**

So, Ichigo now can't use his Resurreccion (did I spell that right?), he can only heal fast. He also can't use his bankai without going Hollowifying first. Correct? WHY? And what's with this whole thing about their fusion and what not (I know that was a few chapters back, but I still don't get it). How do you mean 'fused'? Why can't he touch anyone when he's like that? Am I just missing something from the canon? HELP ME!

**The reply**:

The Bankai thing is a self-imposed limitation; at least in my story, his problem with using Resurreccion is that he just doesn't want to become a hollow. The only time he did was the time when he curb-stomped Ulquiorra and stabbed Ishida, which isn't really going to make him want to repeat the experience. In order to attempt to make him want to hollowify, he was going to put himself into a situation where he needed the power- i.e., the training fight with Renji. However, Ichigo at the power level and skill level that he had even in the Hueco Mundo arc would flatten Renji, and both Ichigo and Zangetsu knew it. Ichigo in Bankai with his mask on was comparable to the mid-ranked Espada, and put up a decent fight against Yammy (who utterly destroyed Renji) at half-power. So, Zangetsu put him under a handicap in chapter 8, in the scene where he fails to become a hollow through meditation: he won't be able to use Bankai until he has hollowified consciously for the first time.

The problem in the fight with Renji (with Ikkaku brought in because I re-watched the Byakuya-Renji fight and decided that Ichigo with the mask on would still flatten him) is that the plan only worked partially. He reached for his hollow powers, which include high-speed regeneration. Then, he regenerated instead of hollowifying. I don't think that's a stretch from what we see in canon; in the Tosen-Komamura fight, Tosen was able to regenerate just with his mask on, without becoming a giant cricket. The reason the hollow is upset is that the point was to force him to power up, and if he can heal himself that's going to be even harder. (I promise, I'm going somewhere with this in the story. There is now only one person in Soul Society powerful enough to force him into Resurreccion. If I can pull it off, it will be awesome.)

To answer the rest of the question, I have to give away a fair bit of the Deicide arc. If you haven't read it yet, here be spoilers.

The fusion is my interpretation of what happens to Ichigo in the Deicide chapters, and I have assumed some familiarity with the events that you may not have if you don't read the manga- the anime hasn't gotten that far yet. Basically, he has to 'accept' his powers to learn the final Getsuga Tensho. To prevent him from doing that, Tensa Zangetsu and the hollow fuse into a single boy (the boy who dragged Unohana over to Ichigo in the first chapter). Ichigo gets stabbed through the stomach, and says it doesn't hurt, to which the boy replies that it is a part of him, and if he accepts the sword it can't hurt. He then says goodbye. In the Aizen-Ichigo fight, Ichigo has a massive powerup and the abiity to 'become Getsuga'. Aizen later describes this as 'becoming one with your zanpakuto and it's power'. In my interpretation, the personality of the hollow-Tensa Zangetsu boy was also absorbed into his mind rather than dying completely. (I liked Zangetsu. I deeply, deeply want this to be true in the manga.) So, when Orihime's power rejected the part of his soul that had been Tensa Zangetsu, which then split back into the hollow and shinigami portions, both of them remember being Ichigo. It is stated in canon that hollows search for their hearts, which is why they attack family first. In my interpretation (used mostly as a way to give the hollow an in-character motive to work with Ichigo) the hollow remembers having a heart, and wants it back.

As for the touching thing, that's my own extrapolation. Aizen, when he brings his power down to a level where the humans in Karakura can sense him, disintegrates stuff with his aura. If a human touches him, they will be destroyed. Ichigo is in a higher dimension of power than Aizen. Presumably, if he brought his power down to where everyone could sense it, it would also disintegrate stuff. This is how he defeated Yamamoto's lava attack in the first chapter: all of the lava that got too close just ceased to exist, except for the lava that was far enough away to just be pushed back and form the obsidian dome. We don't see him touching any living thing but Aizen in the manga until his power is gone- even Isshin is completely covered. Although it is not explicitly shown in the manga, I think it is a reasonable interpretation to say that the contact of his body with that of another living being would have adverse consequences.

That's the justification, anyway. I'll be honest and say that in-story I needed there to be just as many disadvantages as advantages to the new form. I think that [having no sense-able reiatsu = healers unable to heal him] is a big one, but it wouldn't be enough to keep him in a normal state after he had been healed.

I hope this answered your questions, and I'm glad you like the story even though it confused you. Thanks for reviewing.

**End of reply**. And now, on with your regularly scheduled fanfic.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

The tenth day after he had come back in time passed in the manner that had become routine; Ichigo spent the morning in Urahara's underground cavern, alternately meditating in an attempt to hollowify and fighting his hollow, while his hollow attempted to form a Garganta and his sword left them alone to travel to the far reaches of the Rukongai. The afternoon was spent in the mock-up of Las Noches, after which Soi Fon pronounced him capable enough at avoiding cameras that the next day they would place guards in the maze.

In the evening, in a slightly shortened meeting, he gave the basic background on the Bounts and showed the fights they had had when the group had still been in the human world. The questions focused on the layout of the mansion that served as their headquarters, which the shinigami would be preemptively striking in the relatively near future, and they went on long enough that the battles against the Bount in Soul Society were left until the next evening. Ichigo carefully only showed the beginning of the construction of the Senkaimon that the Bount used to enter Soul Society and them departing into it, and didn't tell anyone that Ishida had deliberately used his arrow to open the path.

The next morning passed in much the same manner, but Yoruichi had a surprise waiting for him in the afternoon.

"Here. Put them on." She handed Ichigo a headband and a set of arm- and leg-bands to Ichigo. Each piece had a complicated set of markings inscribed onto the material surrounding a thin chip of blue stone.

"What are they?" he asked, snapping the first around his ankle.

"Kisuke made them. They're to hide your reiatsu for the simulation we're doing today. The people who are wearing one of these," and she tapped a collar with a similar stone that she was already wearing, "won't be able to sense you once you activate the headband."

Ichigo paused, looking at the metallic strip she had mentioned. "If it uses a moronic activation phrase, I'm gonna hurt him."

Yoruichi snorted, obviously familiar with the joke. Which didn't make Ichigo any happier, since it meant that Urahara had been telling it to his friends and quite possibly had the entire thing on tape. He was mildly appeased when she gave him a controller with a button that, once pressed, made both the rock and the engraved runes glow with a soft yellow light.

"Is it working?" he asked her, seeing that her collar was glowing the same color.

"Yeah. And it feels _really_ weird," she answered, shaking her head. Ichigo's spirit pressure felt so _loud_ that it was a shock when it suddenly went silent. "OK, so the goal here is to get through the corridors and reach Soi Fon without being either caught by the recorders or by the living guards. The guards will be wandering through the maze, but have to check in with each other at regular intervals. They'll sound an alarm if they actually see you or if someone doesn't check in.

"So, that means that, ideally, you don't want to be seen. If you are, take the guard out before they can raise the alarm, do it fast enough that you can't be caught on camera, and try to find somewhere to hide the body. After that, assume that you've got a limited amount of time before someone notices they're missing and sets off the sirens."

"Wait. _Body?_"

"They've all been briefed. Tap them on the neck and they'll pretend to collapse. Of course," and she gave him an evil grin, "they'll be trying to avoid that. Everyone but you will be armed, too."

"Who are they?" He had no experience in trying to take anyone down quietly; if the higher-ranked members of the Onmitsukido were participating it might be tricky.

"You won't know that in Hueco Mundo," she replied, "so I can't tell you here. I'll be part of them, though. You can sense me and I can't sense you; if you have to choose between paths, pick the one with the weaker guards."

He nodded silently.

"So, like before, your target is Soi Fon. She'll be in the monitoring station, and we've moved the walls around since yesterday so you'll have to find it again. If the alarm goes off, she'll leave and head for the edges of the maze. If you can catch up before she gets there you can still win."

"So once they know I'm here, I just go through everyone?"

"It's what you'll do in Las Noches. Try to get close so he doesn't have a chance to run, but if it goes to hell, head directly for Aizen and try to take him out before he disappears." She stepped through the nearest door into the maze of white corridors. "Pick an entrance and come through on your own time."

Half an hour later, Ichigo silently flashed into stillness into a side corridor that he could feel didn't have any kido sensors, waiting for the patroller in the larger corridor to pass him. The patrollers would be better at seeing people travelling at the speed of shunpo than the monitors were, and so he was more careful when he moved around them. He was most of the way to Soi Fon's reiatsu, however, and it felt like if the man in front of him wasn't there he would have a clear run to the monitoring station.

As the man passed the side corridor, Ichigo flashed out, grabbed him, and flashed back into the corridor before he had time to yell. Without even looking at his victim, Ichigo waited tensely to hear if Soi Fon had picked the attack up on the monitors. No alarm sounded, and Ichigo relaxed as he removed his hand from the other man's throat and let him go.

"It's been awhile, spikey boy."

Ichigo turned to glance at him. The man was in the typical uniform of the Onmitsukido, which only left the eyes uncovered. "Are you supposed to be talking to me?"

The other man pulled off his bandanna and facemask, revealing black hair and a vaguely familiar face. "Looks like I'm dead now. It doesn't matter."

Ichigo frowned. The face, the nickname… he remembered suddenly. The fight with Grand Fisher, and the shinigami who had come to find out what Rukia had been doing for so long in the real world. He hadn't even known what the Onmitsukido were at the time.

"I never got your name." Ichigo thought back. The man had stepped between Karin and the hollow, and gotten injured doing it… and then fallen asleep. Still, he owed him.

"Saido Eikichiro. You've become a monster, spikey boy. Your reiatsu was high enough that I thought it might happen, but not this fast."

"Kurosaki Ichigo." Ichigo offered him a hand.

"I know." They shook.

"I owe you one. If I can ever help with anything…"

"Eh. Maybe." The older man pulled his headgear back on. "When you grabbed me, I was running two minutes late for a check-in."

Ichigo's eyes widened, and with a curse he was gone, with the Onmitsukido's chuckle echoing behind him. Seconds later a siren pealed through the compound, and Soi Fon's reiatsu began moving rapidly in the opposite direction. Ichigo caught up with her, panting, at the outer edge of the maze.

"In five minutes we start again. Try to get as far as killing me this time."

Ichigo grimaced as she flashed back into the maze, and set off to find another entrance.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

In the bathing room in the Fourth Division before dinner that night, Ichigo pulled on one of the shirts Ishida had made for him, a high-collared sleeveless one made from a stiff golden material. Orihime had picked out the cloth, saying it went well with his hair, and had seemed happy when he grabbed it to change into, so he didn't bother bringing a shihakusho to wear over it at the meeting. No one except maybe Yamamoto would care what he wore anyway.

At dinner, they were chatting quietly until Ishida brought up a question that had occurred to him when watching his image last night as the Bount went through the Senkaimon. "Kurosaki, I thought it had taken considerably longer than a couple of weeks to recover my powers, but I was present and appeared to be ready to fight in some of the images you showed last night. What happened?"

Ichigo swallowed his mouthful and answered, "You were using some Quincy thing that let you collect spirit particles. You broke it in Soul Society and were powerless again."

Ishida frowned. "Where did I get it? I don't think my grandfather had that."

Ichigo shrugged, taking another bite. Ishida wasn't sure whether to strangle Kurosaki or his once and future self.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Later that night, Ichigo froze the final scene at Kariya Jin's death. He shook his head slightly to clear his mind of the memories. Kariya had been the first and, until Ulquiorra, the only humanoid he'd killed. He had come to terms with it, and did not regret the action, but something in him was glad that he was now still alive and would soon hopefully be taken into custody.

"Is that the last of the memories you are going to show us, Kurosaki Ichigo?" Kuchiki Byakuya asked him. Each new sequence of events had been carefully compared to the first discussion they had observed between Ichigo and his zanpakuto, and everything had been accounted for but the one in which Byakuya's name had been mentioned. There had been talk about confronting him over the issue, but it had been decided that the advantages of being able to keep Ichigo under close observation outweighed the potential risk of an unknown situation that Ichigo believed he could handle on his own. It did not stop Byakuya's concern and, though he would not admit it, curiosity.

"…yeah," Ichigo said, rubbing his forehead. "That's… that's everything."

"You sound uncertain," Byakuya pressed, blithely ignoring the warning glances from the rest of the room.

"Yeah… I just feel like I'm forgetting some-" he broke off as the projector responded to his groping for recollection, and the scene around them shifted to the inside of a huge growth of thick branches, with Ichigo's image in Bankai confronting a white-haired man in green armor and a black cape.

/ _"Let's go!"_

"_Come!"_/

Ichigo stared in shock as his image bisected the man, and turned around to see the two halves of his opponent blow away into dust. What. The hell. Was the rock broken?

"And who was that, then?" the Kuchiki head murmured, thinking that Ichigo had let the information he was hiding play accidentally as his mind drifted, as they had seen it do several times over the last week.

"I have no idea," Ichigo answered, blinking. Byakuya raised an eyebrow fractionally. Perhaps not.

"Are they blurring together, Ichigo?" Ikkaku smirked from his place behind Kenpachi. "It's polite to ask their names before killing them, y'know."

Ichigo shot him an annoyed look. "I've never seen that guy before."

"Or perhaps you do not remember him," Mayuri mused. "Conscious recollection is not necessary for the function of my projector. It is intended to call up memories better than you yourself can remember. Attempt to focus on the surroundings, and you will be able to play the memory from your entry into the area."

Ichigo hesitated on general principle (it was _Mayuri_), but finally focused his thoughts on the enormous barren tree surrounding his frozen image. It was an odd feeling. He had grown used to the mindset needed to focus the projector, but now he was trying to keep his mind blank except for the memories their surroundings called up. The images around them flickered several times, once through a forest with a number of natural vines and a couple of times to him as a small child playing on a jungle-gym, before settling on his image entering into the odd tree-structure. Ichigo glanced behind him with the rest of the shinigami- Renji and Rukia were engaged in combat with two green-armored figures far into the floor beneath him, and in the distance several of the other members of the audience were similarly engaged. As the memory played, the view of the fighting was blocked by the gigantic branches.

/_"SENNA!"_

"_You still think the Memory Rosary can be saved?"_/

Noises of comprehension came from the rest of the room. Ichigo paused the projection.

"What?"

Mayuri was by far the most excited. "When the Memory Rosary disappears, all ties to it are forgotten. It is much the same procedure that Kuchiki's hollow children will use, but more thorough. We only have written and instrumental records of the Memory Rosaries shinigami have encountered. Until my invention, nothing has been able to retrieve any recollection of it! The information we will gain is priceless!"

Ichigo stared at him blankly, clearly having no clue what he was babbling about.

"You must have been in the Valley of Screams," Ise Nanao supplied helpfully.

Ichigo turned to her, unenlightened. "The what?"

"Occasionally, Kurosaki-san," Korutsuchi Nemu began at an impatient gesture from her captain, who did not want to be bothered with teaching things that most Shinigami learned in the Academy, "a soul will get lost on the journey between the mortal world and Soul Society. The lost souls congregate and form a location called the Valley of Screams. In the Valley, the energy and the memories of the congregated souls are separated, and the memories form an entity called the Shinenju, the Memory Rosary, which is expelled into the real world. The blank spirits from the energy follow the Shinenju and they will eventually all be drawn back to the Valley of Screams. When the Blanks and the Memory Rosary are united, the Valley of Screams implodes and the souls are free to resume their journey to Soul Society."

"It's a natural procedure, though," Hitsugaya pointed out. "We have no reason to interfere with something that has happened a hundred times before."

"The man Kurosaki-san killed may have something to do with it," Ukitake murmured. "Can you recall when you first encountered the Rosary?"

Ichigo shrugged and focused his mind on the new term. '_Memory Rosary'…_ their surroundings switched to Urahara's sitting room, with Hitsugaya, Matsumoto, Tessai, Urahara, and a slightly younger Ichigo.

/ _"That entity is known as the Memory Rosary. The valley's appearance is a naturally occurring phenomenon. We've seen it happen many times. But the problem is that this one is connecting the real world and Soul Society," the shopkeeper explained to the orange-haired teen._

"_Is it really that out of the ordinary?"_

"_You wouldn't call two stars being connected ordinary, would you?" the youngest captain asked scornfully. "This is on the same level. Someone's doing this on purpose."_/

No, that probably wasn't it. Ichigo let his mind wander again as the observers tried to process the new information.

"Kurotsuchi-taicho. What would be the likely effect if the Valley of Screams formed in such a way that it connected us to the mortal world?" Yamamoto asked the resident expert. Ichigo paused to listen.

"Very little," Mayuri replied. "Possibly some visual distortion. We might be able to see into the dimension pressing against us, or even to the human world. It would depend on the relative orientations."

They relaxed, reassured. Komamura asked, "If it was enemy action, then, why bother?"

"Oh, when the Shinenju returned to the Valley and it imploded, the vacuum would probably draw the two dimensions together and destroy them both," the mad scientist answered matter-of-factly. "The destruction would have far greater consequences than the formation."

There was a short pause as the entire room looked at him incredulously. Gin, his eyes closed and his smile firmly in place, remarked, "Most people woulda' mentioned that bit first, ya know."

Mayuri sniffed in reply. "Be precise, then."

"The strike force clearly recovered the Rosary in the future," Soi Fon said, "and if it was deliberate then we will have the knowledge to prevent the attack. Continue, Kurosaki."

Ichigo let his mind drift again, and the projector called up another memory snippet- this time of himself sitting across from a girl he didn't recognize at an outdoor dining area in the Karakura Mall.

/ "_What do you know about the Blanks and the Memory Rosary?"_

"_Nothing. First time I've heard about them."_/

Still not it. As he wondered who the girl was, the surroundings shifted to the girl in a shinigami uniform, destroying a number of white spirits with a tornado. Reinforcements for Karakura during the crisis, maybe? If he couldn't remember a guy he'd killed, he probably wouldn't remember anyone he'd fought beside. He focused on the Shinenju again, and the surroundings changed to a festival-ground with Ichigo's image next the new shinigami, facing doubles of Ukitake, Soi Fon, Hitsugaya, Matsumoto, Renji, Rukia, and several members of the Onmitsukido.

/ _"I can't believe it, but the Memory Rosary we've been searching for… is you." Ukitake told the girl solemly._

"_Me?" She shook her head frantically, eyes wide as she clutched her head._

"_It's been twenty-four hours since the Valley of Screams appeared to us." Hitsugaya's voice was determined. "Soul Society has reached the conclusion that the ringleader Ganryu's goal is to destroy both worlds. And the Memory Rosary is the key to his plans._

"_Shinenju Senna. You will hereby be detained by Soul Society, indefinitely."_/

Ichigo had a sinking feeling in his stomach… something told him that this wasn't the right place for this, that there were too many eyes watching, and he didn't know what memories he wouldn't want to show them. Backing out now, though, was as good as admitting that he might have something to hide. Was this how everyone else had felt when they saw their future selves in action and wondered what they would do, without knowing their former state of mind?

/ "_No way! What are you talking about? I'm… I'm… I'm…"_

"_Hold it." Ichigo calmly put an arm across her chest, pushing her slightly behind him as he stepped forward. "I don't like this."_ /

Several of the observers sighed in resignation, while Yamamoto opened his eyes slightly. He was left to wonder if his future self had anticipated the resistance. The group Kurosaki had been confronting was suspiciously well-populated by the shinigami that had been closest to the boy, the men and women he would be the most reluctant to draw his sword on.

/ "_Whatever she is, it doesn't change the fact that she's here now. She still experiences anger, happiness and pain. And you're going to ignore all that and lock her up? Then you're no better than them! I can't hand Senna over to you."_/

"What did you imagine you could do about it, Kurosaki? You were human, and would hardly have been a challenge." Soi Fon paused and narrowed her eyes, listening to her own words. That was a weakness she had forgotten about when considering contingency plans, plans that the human had just proven were necessary. In his mortal body he was no match for even the weakest shinigami, and he needed artificial aids to free himself of his outer shell. Capturing him in it might be possible, or the death of his body might be debilitating for at least a short while.

"Look, I don't remember this, all right?" Ichigo snapped at her in response as Ukitake's image grimly answered his double.

/ "_I'm sorry, but now isn't the time to discuss this."_

_Renji tensed, hand on his sword hilt. "Out of the way, Ichigo!"_

"_I'm not moving." _/

The confrontation was broken up by an attack by figures in the same green armor that the man Ichigo had killed wore, and the surroundings whirled around them sickeningly as Senna and Ichigo's past self dove out of the way and continued rolling, bodies pressed against each other until Ichigo swallowed his Gikon and emerged as a shinigami. The battle between the shinigami and the newcomers began, and continued until Senna joined in and attacked the leader, who Ichigo recognized as the man he had already seen himself kill. The armored figures disengaged and rejoined him, leaving the shinigami looking up at them in surprise.

/ "_So it's true! You're the exiled members of a once-noble house, trying to take your revenge!" Ukitake yelled up at them._

"_I wouldn't know. We are the clan of darkness, the Dark Ones."_ /

"A once-noble house, exiled…" Shunsui mused, thinking back through the years. "Nothing comes to mind."

"The Ryudoji," Yamamoto replied. "The armor is familiar. They were exiled to the Dangai Precipice World ten centuries ago for starting a civil war, back when it was still a penal colony. I took command during the conflict after the death of my predecessor."

The Blanks on the ground began exploding, distracting the captains while the figures above them made their escape- until Ichigo released his sword and darted up between them to cut off their path.

/ "_I won't let you take Senna away!"_/

He easily flashed around the underlings to confront the leader, whom Hitsugaya had called Ganryu earlier- but as he raised his sword to strike, the sharpened staff tip of Senna's zanpakuto darted from underneath the man's arm, stabbing him through the stomach.

/ "_Ichigo!"_ /

As he fell, he could see the pursuing shinigami go after him, except for Rukia, who paused and followed him down before he hit the ground. The projection went dark as his image lost consciousnesss.

From her place behind her captain, Matsumoto chirped, "So, what was your relationship with her?"

"I don't know." A slight blush tinted Ichigo's cheeks as he scratched his head uncomfortably.

"At least you didn't actually draw on us," Ukitake murmured, chuckling. He was… clearly still a teenager in many respects.

"The exiles were dominating the fight, but if we were going to the mortal world we would have been under limits." Hitsugaya drew the focus back to the relevant issues impatiently. "Everyone but Ukitake-taicho followed them to the Valley of Screams, and we did not seem to be having difficulty in the conflict."

"It could not have been that simple. Kurosaki was injured, and had clearly taken the time to be healed. Your team had also received reinforcements- I believe I saw Hisagi-fukutaicho in the distance," Unohana replied. "At least a few hours had passed between the memory we just saw and the death of the ringleader. Can we pinpoint the time of day when the attack began?"

Ichigo focused on the people who had been with him as they prepared to enter into the Valley, and let his mind drift. Nothing- the scene around him flickered from battle to battle beside the shinigami surrounding him, but he recognized every memory. He focused on the Valley itself, and the image in front of him began bounding through a barren plain, aiming for the huge crack in the center. He was alone.

"Where were we? Did you scout ahead?" Renji asked. Ichigo shrugged. If he had gone ahead of the main group, maybe he had entered the Valley alone as well? _'Entrance to the Valley of Screams…"_

Finally, the scene resolved onto one that looked right. He and Rukia were standing in midair high above the Karasu River.

/ "_That's the same place you can see from Soul Society."_

"_We can get in. Rukia, get in touch with Urahara-san."_

"_Wait, Ichigo- you can't go in alone!"_

"_I'm going! I _will_ save her."_/

"That makes no sense- if it was past night we should have been with you," Hitsugaya said as Ichigo's image fell through the dimensions. "We didn't have much time."

"If we did not know where the entrance was, we may have made other plans," Ukitake remarked. "The strike team might not have been mobilized until Kuchiki sent word."

They travelled with Ichigo through the Valley, as he confronted the Dark Ones to Senna's shock and relief, and as he was swarmed by Blanks, which could not hurt him but could delay him. The ground was then collapsed by Kenpachi's landing, and the audience looked up to take note of the shinigami who, once upon a timeline, would have responded to the call that Kurosaki Ichigo needed backup.

/ "_Quit wasting time!" Hitsugaya called._

"_You guys…"_/

Rukia and Renji had been there, to no-one's surprise. The top four officers of the Eleventh were present as well, although whether they had followed Ichigo or the prospect of a fight or both was anyone's guess. Hitsugaya's eyes narrowed to see that he seemed to have _gathered_ the reinforcements, although he suspected that Kira, Hisagi, and Iba were there as much for Matsumoto as for Kurosaki. Soi Fon was mildly startled to see herself; had she come to help Kurosaki, or had she had some other reason?

Ichigo, looking around as his image pursued Ganryu, couldn't see Kuchiki Byakuya anywhere. If Rukia was around, however, he'd bet money that the captain of the Sixth was somewhere nearby. When he confronted the last two of the exiles between him and his goal, Renji's bankai ferried him past them as he and Rukia took over the fight. Now, the audience was caught up.

/_"Hang in there, Senna! I'm getting you out of here!"_

"_Can you not comprehend my words? You speak of the impossible."_

"_Getsuga Tensho!"_/

The energy blast disrupted Ganruy's invisibility, and the fight was joined in earnest when Ichigo's image went into Bankai and was immediately buried by the material surrounding them that his opponent could manipulate at will. After an exchange of blows, the exile managed to pin Ichigo's past self against a thick branch with the material. Since he was now encased in the tree trunk, Ichigo moved the projection stone to his side and slightly behind him to see what was going on.

/_ "For one thousand years our clan was forced to live in the deepest corners of the Severed World. We endured the hardship and survived to this day by feeding on our hatred, on our desire to obliterate Soul Society! And now, finally, that desire is about to come true! I won't let anyone stop me!"_

_Ichigo's image was pierced through by several thrown daggers, and coughed up a mouthful of blood._

"_Why are you so desperate? The Memory Rosary is merely a condensed mass of thoughts and memories. To call it a living, breathing thing is too much."_/

Most of the observers had similar questions.

/_ "She was nervous, and scared, and wanted someone to help." The orange-haired boy pulled out the last of the blades, and freed his torso from the hardened material. "I promised to protect her. I swore on my soul!"_/

With a flare of reiatsu, Ichigo's image was free. As the dimension began to destabilize, the audience travelled with him down to the center of the tree, until Ganryu interposed himself between Ichigo and his goal. His death played out as it had once before, and the tree parted in front of them to reveal Senna's exhausted form.

/ "_You're awfully quiet. What happened to your usual energy?"_

_She smiled at him. "Oh, shut up."_/

The two left the dimension, and Ichigo looked around them as his past self traveled through the dimensions and pushed himself out of the river to stand in the air above it with the rest of the strike force. Yes, Byakuya was among them. He relaxed as the most of the shinigami in the projection left while he, Senna, Rukia, and Renji joined his human friends on the bridge over the river. His past self had just told Senna that he had found her hair-ribbon when they realized that the chain reaction had gone too far to stop simply by removing the Shinenju from the Valley of Screams.

/ _She reached out and grabbed the arm of his uniform. "Ichigo, I'm scared."_

"_Senna…"_

"_But…but… I won't let it go. A world like this, that's so much fun! Where so many people live… where you live, Ichigo!"_

_She let go of his arm. "I'll be OK. The blanks are still close to me. If I use their energy, I know I can return both worlds to normal."_

"_Senna…" His eyes were wide._

"_If the world ended, you'd disappear too. I don't want that to happen!"_

"_Stop! You've got to…"_

"_I'd rather sacrifice myself than let you die!"_

_The surroundings exploded into golden light and power._/

Ichigo's eyes were wide, and he could hear his own heartbeat.

His hand fell from the usual position outstretched in front of him. As the projector slipped from fumbling fingers, the surroundings briefly flickered to a rainy day beside a river before the stone lost the connection with his reiatsu.

When it hit the ground, the glass globe surrounding the near-invulnerable sekkisekki stone shattered, and the kido recorders swirled up and around him before disappearing to the far corners of the room.

The breaking glass was the only sound. Ichigo stood frozen, and even the most insensitive of the observers had been startled into silence. Finally, Orihime, at the back, whispered "…Kurosaki-kun…"

The familiar name, the familiar voice, broke Ichigo out of his shock. He needed- he needed to get away, there were too many people here, too many judging eyes, and although he'd thought he'd shown himself at his most vulnerable during the fights with Aizen and the Espada it was _nothing_ compared to this-

He took a stumbling step forward.

He had the power. He had the instinct. He had the need.

The first step led to a second. By the third he was almost running. Yamamoto, directly in his path, raised his cane between them to ward him off as the two lines of captains were startled into movement.

Just before he stepped out from between the double lines, Ichigo _reached_. The air ripped open in front of him.

Kurosaki Ichigo ran into the first Garganta ever made from his power, and was gone.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know how long he had been running. He just responded to some deep desire to be away from the questions that would inevitably follow, and the pity or scorn that the best or worst of the observers would offer.

He noted, with the minor part of his brain not completely numb, that Unohana would be even more disdainful of his sloppy control than she had been the first time. The reishi supporting him did not form a path so much as it did a series of stepping stones, and each long stride he took brought him over darkness before a place to land appeared under his foot.

Finally, the end of the garganta approached. He left it and emerged on a sunny late afternoon in the human world, though it had been past sunset in the Seireitei. He looked around to find out where his instincts had brought him.

Of course. Where else?

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

In the wake of Ichigo's flight, the room was in an uproar that only calmed when the captain-commander slammed his cane down onto the floor several times. As the shinigami and humans settled back into their customary positions, Yamamoto turned to the first priority. "Can we find out where he went?"

"We can only track hollow appearances in the human world," Mayuri replied. "If his Garganta ends there, yes. If he goes to Hueco Mundo or becomes lost between dimensions..."

"Order the monitoring station to immediately alert us if he is detected." At Yamamoto's order, Nemu left the room to contact the observation facility for the mortal world. He continued, "Begin a study to suggest the alternate plan we would have been most likely to use under the circumstances in the future."

"Unneccesary. The dimension was undergoing considerable stress as the strike team was leaving. It is likely that in the final moments before the dimension passed the critical point, we attempted to destroy it with the Kido Cannon. Since they survived, the method clearly failed."

They paused, processing that. Kira Izuru asked, "Would we have known that going in?"

"I hope you are not suggesting that I would ask for volunteers under false pretenses, Kira-fukutaicho," Hitsugaya said coolly.

"My apologies, Hitsuguya-taicho. I was merely surprised. I have never spoken to Kurosaki."

Hisagi, who like Kira had not ever spent time with the ryoka outside of the meetings, nodded slightly.

Ukitake frowned. "The damage to the dimensions if we had succeeded in using the Kido Cannon would be immense. Would we really have done something so risky?"

Yamamoto once again attempted to understand his own actions without enough information. "If the alternative was the destruction of Soul Society and the mortal world, yes. But it would be the last resort. If Kuchiki sent word that the entrance had been found, I could have decided it would be worth the risk to send in a group of volunteers and give you as much time as possible to recover the Shinenju."

"But that didn't work in time, and the Cannon failed," Gin said cheerfully. "Good thing the kid's a heartbreaker, right?"

"He didn't want that to happen!" Orihime said hotly from the back of the room. Gin turned to her in slight surprise- the humans rarely spoke up in the meetings, although they attended faithfully and asked their friend many questions outside of them. She continued, "Kurosaki-kun won't let it happen again!"

"It will have no chance to happen again, girl," Soi Fon answered scornfully. "It was caused by enemies in the Precipice World. They will not surrender. When my teams locate them we will wipe them out. The exiles will not have a chance to form the Valley of Screams."

"They know the terrain far better," Ishida disagreed. "They have spent a thousand years avoiding the Koutotsu. Your men won't be able to find them, and you can't set a trap since you don't know when they will be acting."

"Soon. Early fall, from the leaf colors and the human clothing," Ise Nanao answered. "Kurosaki's memories may help us narrow it down more."

"He won't kill her." Orihime knew it as well as she knew him. "He would have died for her."

"All available evidence indicates that Kurosaki would die for strangers off the street," Mayuri snorted. He held out a hand as a hell butterfly fluttered around him, and listened Nemu's message. "He has left his Garganta. Current location is the real world, area 3888, section 3. His hometown, beside the river."

Rukia remembered the brief image of the river on a rainy day, and the small boy crouched next to a fallen woman, and closed her eyes. _"Oh, Ichigo…"_

Mayuri walked forward and picked up the memory projector where it lay among shards of glass in between the lines of the captains. When he opened the base and fiddled with a few controls, the kido recorders that had been randomly floating around the room returned to his hand. "This is easily repairable. My lieutenant will bring it to him later tonight and recover the information we need."

"Kurosaki will not be cooperative." Kuchiki Byakuya, even more than the rest of them, had seen the teen at his most stubborn.

"He has no reason not to be. She will not exist again in any case, and Nemu will be… persuasive." Mayuri had been intending to gather data on the effects of the hollow instincts on human biology anyway, and Kurosaki had not been amenable to his generous offers of decent treatment.

Ishida frowned. "What do you mean, 'she won't exist'?"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

"Did you know?"

The only answer was the dark pounding of the rain falling from the sideways sky.

"_Did you know?"_

Thunder crashed and wind howled through the buildings.

"_DID YOU KNOW?'!"_

"I told you already, King. Anything you were conscious for, we can see."

"_Why didn't you tell me?"_

The dark man standing on the flagpole was barely distinguishable from the clouds silhouetting him. His gesture at their surroundings was more eloquent than any speech could be.

"…bastards."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Korutsuchi Nemu stepped out of the Senkaimon, the repaired memory projector in her hand. She followed the trail of Kurosaki Ichigo's reiatsu to its source, a riverbank in the northern part of Karakura, but stopped before passing between the two figures at the top of the staircase leading down to the river.

"He will not welcome company." Ichigo's sword knew him better than any other being in existence, but Nemu had her orders.

"I have been ordered to acquire the information he left incomplete. Has he instructed you to prevent passage?"

"Nah, it's just raining," the pale boy leaning against the railing grinned. As Nemu looked at the beautiful sunset around them in askance, he flashed to her side, one hand on her shoulder, and gave her a shove towards the stairs. "Have you come to change that?"

Nemu stumbled slightly, but caught her balance before calmly walking away from the figure so alike, and so different from, the young man she had come to bargain with. The zanpakuto spirit stepped to the side, giving her access to the staircase. As she passed him, he murmured, "If he attempts to use the stone in this state of mind, it will be destroyed."

She nodded to acknowledge the warning. Ichigo's reiatsu roiled around them, dark and light and completely wild. His control was clearly far below even his usual low standards. She approached him anyway, and he glanced back slightly to put a face to the vaguely familiar spirit pressure.

"Korutsuchi Nemu." His voice was calm, and he smiled at her. She had seen enough of him over the past week to be disturbed.

"Kurosaki-san." She held out the snow-globe, once again encased within an intact sphere. "Mayuri-sama has ordered me to retrieve the remainder of the memory you showed us. If we know the specifics of the anomaly in advance we may be able to find the exiles and prevent it from occurring."

"The anomaly. You mean Senna." He had turned back to the river to watch the sunset shimmering off of the waters, and his voice was flat, but he had at least lost the smile. His shirt and hair matched the yellows and oranges of the light surrounding them as the sun began to sink below the horizon.

"I have been told to give you anything you desire for the information. Anything at all."

"And she'd… what, die? Never exist?" He took the outstretched snow-globe, and turned it over in his hands, looking at the drifting flecks of blue light.

"Since you have come back, she will likely not be formed anyway, and she never should have been. It is why the memories disappear. We cannot keep the memories of something that should not have existed in the first place."

Ichigo turned back towards her and growled, "Shut up! She saved the world. Anyone who would give their life for that should exist!"

She flinched back slightly, but Nemu had her orders. "A Shinenju is merely a condensed mass of thoughts and memories. She was not really a person-" but she was physically pushed back by the sudden surge of his reiatsu, and cut off the words with a choked gasp.

"_Yes she was!"_ Ichigo saw her fear and stopped cold, reining his aura in and taking several deep breaths before continuing more calmly.

"She was scared. She loved… she loved the human world. She didn't want to die, but she gave her life anyway. She was a person if she thought she was a person."

She blinked, startled and slightly distracted. How… unexpected. "…Descartes, Kurosaki-san?"

"What?"

Or not. "Descartes René, a human mathematician and philosopher who wished to prove the existence of his god, and first started by questioning his own existence. He decided that he existed because he had the capacity to wonder about himself. He thought, and so therefore there must have been an 'I' to do the thinking."

"Oh." He allowed her to change the subject. "Something like that, I guess. Is that what you do in the Twelfth?"

"No," she answered, coming to stand next to him as the tension in the air decreased, "we focus primarily on applied science, not philosophy. It is a personal area of study, and not one that Mayuri-sama has any interest in."

"Why do you study it, then?"

"The question of existence holds a greater than academic interest for me," she replied serenely.

He swallowed, and looked away from her, thinking back to what little he knew about her creation. "Sorry."

"For what?"

He shook his head and turned back to the river. "…nothing."

She finally dared to settle next to him, just close enough to be slightly outside of his personal space. She was not eager to bring the subject back up… but Nemu had her orders.

"Have you truly considered the effects of the Hogyoku's action, Kurosaki-san? Have you ever thought about what it would mean to alter the future?"

"What do you mean?"

"The effects of time-travel have been strongly debated among the intellectuals of Soul Society for centuries, and have been a focus of research in the Research and Development Institute since it was founded. We know it is theoretically possible." She pulled her knees up to her chest, relaxing when the powerful young man next to her did not become openly hostile at the return to the sensitive subject. "One of the areas of speculation has always been whether we would be able to change history enough to cause a paradox. If you had gone back fifty years and killed your human grandfather before he conceived your mother, you would never have been born, and therefore could not have gone back in time to kill your grandfather. Do you understand the question?"

"Yeah."

"All of our calculations decided that it was impossible to change history. What has happened, has happened. The probability that you can create a paradox by preventing your own time-travel is zero."

Ichigo snorted. "Sorry to mess that up for you guys."

"You haven't." Her chin rested on her knees as she turned to look at him solemnly. "Our calculations were based on the transportation of a physical body. It was the only way to travel through time we had considered. The people who are caught by the Koutotsu in the Dangai Precipice World are thrown into a much different time from when they entered. Hundreds of years forward, or hundreds of years back. Their bodies cannot keep up with the violent flow of time, and they arrive dead. The question has always been 'if someone survived, could they change the past'? And we still think the answer is 'no'. But, you did not physically move back in time. Only your memories and powers returned."

"I still look like I did after I trained in the Precipice World, before I came back," Ichigo pointed out. "I grew some in the next few months."

"But your body retained the wounds Aizen had given it before you came back in time. Your soul came back, and it remembered how it was supposed to look, and so it changed the appearance of your spiritual body, your coat, and your sword, but your body was the same. There were never two copies of you in Soul Society." And the scientists at the RDI had been very thankful. Mayuri had given them free access to the information Ichigo had chosen to make public, and the current working theory was that placing two of Kurosaki Ichigo near each other would cause the destruction of whatever dimension they happened to be in at the time.

"So what?"

"We think that, since no physical objects were transported back, you did not create a closed timelike curve. You have already changed the future so much that there is no chance you will ever come back in time under the same circumstances, but it does not matter. What you and Aizen Sosuke have is, for all intents and purposes, a shared hallucination of possible future events that you have the power to change."

Ichigo snorted. "I figured that out as soon as I woke up. Didn't need to be told. That doesn't mean I have to change everything. All we have to do is take out that Ganyu guy early and keep Senna out of the Valley of Screams, right?"

She was prevaricating, and wasn't sure why, but continued to do so rather than simply tell him the hard truth. "… are you familiar with chaos theory? In dynamical systems, small changes in the initial conditions make a large difference. The fluttering of a hell butterfly's wings in the Seireitei can cause a sandstorm in Hueco Mundo. Changes are beginning to build up, and nothing of what you experienced will happen the same way you remember."

His eyes narrowed slightly, thinking he understood where she was going with the new try at persuasion. "They might not happen in the same place or time, but they'll still happen. Your dad admitted that Rukia's kids are still going to show up at some point."

"The hollow children that you showed us died a century ago. They have been planning to come back for her for a long time, and will likely keep to that resolve despite any actions you take. The Memory Rosary, however… it is made up of the memories of souls that have gotten lost on the way to Soul Society. Your presence here means that you are not killing hollows and performing konso in Karakura town. The meetings over the last week and a half have kept all of the senior officers in the Seireitei, so the patrol schedules have been adjusted to account for that. The shinigami patrolling the real world are not the same as they would have been in the timeline you remember, so they will not send the same plus souls to Soul Society at the same time. Different souls will get lost, and so different memories will compose the Shinenju. If the Valley of Screams forms in our timeline, the being it will create has only a small probability of being the girl you cannot remember."

It was strangely hard to state the conclusion… but Nemu had her orders. "I am sorry, Kurosaki-san. Simply by coming back in time, you have almost completely erased any chance that the Shinenju called Senna will exist."

Ichigo stayed silent, trying not to lash out at someone whom he was pretty sure couldn't defend herself. He wanted to scream and shout and deny her words, but couldn't forget the many times over the past few days when little things, stuff he didn't think he should have affected, had changed from what he remembered. The sparring match with Ikkaku at the Eleventh, Ishida's sudden decision to make him clothing when he hadn't cared the first time, Ukitake's illness on a day when he shouldn't have been sick… Gin was in charge of the Third instead of Kira, and if Ichigo killed Aizen the Seireitei wouldn't be on a wartime footing, which would probably change the hollow patrols around even more… Still, hoping for hope, he grabbed onto one word. "Almost?"

"A Memory Rosary may be created. It might even take on a human form. I am not an expert on the subject and cannot offer you an exact number, but I would estimate that the probability of that entity being the girl you showed us is less than one in a thousand. If you wish to speak with them, the physicists at the Institute could give you a more exact number."

Ichigo shook his head, pulling one knee up to his chest and resting his chin on it to half-way mirror her body language. "I don't think you'd lie to me."

A slight blush tinted her cheeks, and she glanced away from him. "Thank you."

They fell into an almost comfortable silence before she spoke again, drawing his attention back to her. She, and many others, wanted to know why he was even considering putting two dimensions at risk for the chance to save someone whom he had not remembered and did not yet exist. "Did you love her?"

Rather than answer immediately, he let the silence linger, trying to push away events he recalled far too well and remember the ones he had forgotten. Finally, he shook his head, and gave her the truth."…I don't remember. You know as much as I do. Did I love her?"

"I am… perhaps not the person to ask," she admitted, a little startled by the question. "You have placed yourself in equivalent danger for Kuchiki Rukia, Inoue Orihime, and the little Espada, and have not otherwise shown a romantic interest in them that I am aware of. I do not know."

He nodded. Neither of them spoke for several minutes, and Ichigo's reiatsu, which had never stopped whirling unsettlingly around them, finally started calming. Nemu had seen enough of her father's temper tantrums to know when to let his own thoughts do the convincing.

Finally, Ichigo sighed. "The hollow Grand Fisher was hunting here when I was nine years old. He put out a little girl who looked like she was in trouble as bait. I ran towards her. I was with my mom, who couldn't see spirits, but she knew something was wrong. When he attacked, she took the hit for me."

Nemu nodded slowly, finally understanding.

"On the anniversary of her death in June he came back. He was weak, not even a Menos, but so was I back then. He got away. I swore I'd kill him, but I never saw him again.

"She loved me, and she died to save me." Neither of them was sure which woman he was talking about. "I promised myself I wouldn't let it happen again."

"No one who saw Senna tonight will ever forget her. It is more than she would have had if you had not come back in time. It is more than any Shinenju has ever had."

The sun fell over the horizon, and as they watched the red sky began to fade to a muted purple.

Finally, Ichigo took a deep breath.

He raised the projector.

And he flipped the switch to 'record'.

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The signal from the recording devices, which had been transmitting to Urahara's shop, and from there to both the Vizards and the Seireitei simultaneously, began to be sent to the base of the projector.

In the Seireitei, where it was now almost midnight, the members of the Shinigami Women's Association groaned in frustration. Rukia, who had just been told how the recorders in the memory projector worked, sighed in relief. She and Yoruichi, who was sitting on the cushion next to her, had been the only members of the audience to recognize the brief flash of Masaki's image in the meeting room earlier. She didn't know what Ichigo would be showing, but at least they would have his permission to see it.

At the back of the room, the Soutaicho nodded once in satisfaction, and left without a word.

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In the common room of the warehouse, the Kurosaki twins turned towards their father while the other residents of the warehouse started leaving the room. Love clapped Isshin on the shoulder as he left, and Chad stayed to lend the girls his silent support for the upcoming talk as Yuzu began the questions. "Daddy, was Mommy killed by a hollow?"

Isshin nodded, his eyes closed, remembering back to that terrible day.

"Nii-san thinks it's his fault." Yuzu couldn't imagine what Ichigo had felt upon finding that out.

"If it's anyone's fault, it is mine. He was a child. I should have protected them. It is the greatest regret of my life."

"He got away. He never had to _pay_ for it," Karin growled.

"I will find him, Karin. I swear it." Isshin had hoped after the fight that Grand Fisher would come back to finish the job. He had been prepared to leave his Gigai the instant he felt the murderer's reiatsu. The canny old hollow had apparently cut his losses and run, never giving him the chance. "If I need to, I will go to Hueco Mundo itself to hunt him down and free Masaki's soul. In this timeline, he will pay. I swear it upon her grave."

"I'll help," was Chad's contribution. His fighting strength had been growing over the last week of intensive training, slowly but surely. The Vizards, bored by being cooped up in the warehouse, had turned to training Chad, training more intensively with each other, and watching Ichigo's past fights for entertainment in lieu of their normal outside activities. Chad's hollow-like powers were thriving in the high-reiatsu environment. He could fire twice as many energy blasts as he had been able to when he fought Kyoraku Shuunsui, and he occaisionally felt an itching in his left arm, as though it should be able to take part in the fight.

Watching Ichigo enter Resurreccion to defeat Ulquiorra had led the Vizards to begin training and meditating in an attempt to do the same, consciously. They did not know how the battle with Aizen had gone before Ichigo arrived on the scene, but they had to assume that Aizen had a good idea of their current capabilities; unless they developed powers they had not had in the original timeline, they would have completely lost the element of surprise.

The decision to train to attempt full hollowification had received mixed levels of enthusiasm, and they knew that without the active participation of their hollow power it would be difficult. Hiyori, though, had thrown herself into the attempt in a determined effort to enter Resurreccion before Ichigo, to win a race that the youngest Vizard did not even know he was participating in.

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The images played through the night as they sat together without speaking.

Their first meeting- a tornado among the Blanks, an awkward introduction, him dogging her footsteps until being called away by the shinigami from the Tenth.

The second- a tightrope walk along a string of lights, the purchase of a ribbon, an attack at the grave she claimed as her own.

The offer of a bed for the night, and she curled up asleep on his own until the image carried her to Rukia's unoccupied bed next door.

A shift to the next day, and an hours-long search for a little ghost's father so that they could travel to the Seireitei together.

/_ "He'll have to leave this world soon, and there's a long journey waiting for him. It'd be too sad if we didn't grant him one last wish first. I can't bury his soul like this. I at least want his last memory to be a happy one."_/

The final attack, and her identity, and her capture.

The end, and the golden light, and the last request- that they spend the final moments of her life at her grave.

/ "_I was alive once, living in this town. I know it."_

"_I know."_

"_Like I said, I had parents. I was alive. So my name must be on the grave, too."_

"_Here, right?"_

"_Four stones from the end." She looked at the grave from her place on his back. "Is there a name? I've got something in my eye."_

_He read the marker, which was devoid of any mention of her. _

"_Is it there?"_

"_Yeah, it is." He stood up. "You used to live in this town, and you had a family."_/

As she faded away, Ichigo let the projection die. The early morning light in the graveyard faded to the first light of a new dawn over the river. He felt… much like how his past self must have felt, if his quiet voice had been anything to go by. Numb and tired. She was someone he had promised to protect, and in the end he had failed her. This time around, he hadn't even had a chance.

He tossed the snow-globe to Nemu to allow her to retrieve the recording.

"Thank you for cooperating, Kurosaki-san."

"Just Ichigo's fine," he told her quietly. "Would you have gotten into trouble if I didn't?"

"My captain would not have been pleased if I had not fulfilled my assignment." She paused as their hands brushed when she leaned over to hand back the projector. She had fulfilled her orders without resorting to unorthodox methods of persuasion. There was …no need to do anything more. "Is there anything I can offer you in return? Anything at all."

A brief silence, and then "Yeah." He turned slightly from staring at the river, his eyes still distant. "Make sure she gets remembered. Make sure everyone knows she was a person."

"… of course." She straightened abruptly. "Please excuse me… Ichigo."

She got up and summoned a Senkaimon gate. As the doors opened and she prepared to step through, he called after her, "You're a person too, Nemu. Don't ever forget it."

She paused without turning, framed by the glowing light of the portal. "She made the correct decision."

As she stepped through, the last sound she heard was his startled "Eh?"

Ichigo blinked after her as the Senkaimon closed, then shrugged and turned back to the river he had spent so much time watching as a small child as he grieved for his mother. The avatars of his power, whom he had called out of his soul each time he lost the manifestation throughout the night, approached him from behind.

"Tell me, if a girl crawled naked into your bed, would you offer her clothing and ask if she was lost?"

Ichigo gaped at the hollow as the question broke through the haze surrounding his thoughts. _"What?"_

"She wanted to trade sex for information, idiot."

"SHE DID NOT!"

The white-haired boy cleared his throat. "I have been told to give you anything you desire for the information. Anything at all." If he hadn't been speaking with a hollow's doubled tones, it would have been a nearly perfect mimic of Nemu's quiet voice.

Ichigo shuddered. "…please don't ever do that again."

"I'm just saying, if you've got a thing for cute brunettes, I can think of a few ways she could make the sun shine."

"Are you insane? Her _father_ sent her here!"

"Her father's Mayuri." The hollow's words made Ichigo stop short and think about it. No, he wouldn't put that past the captain of the Twelfth.

"It's still sick. No wonder she was scared."

"She would _not_ have minded. The sensitivity shit's great, but you've got to follow up on it, King!"

"Look, why are you still here?"

His pale double grinned at him. "How's the weather?"

Ichigo paused, and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them with a snort. "Cloudy."

"Good enough." The hollow disappeared.

Ichigo turned to look at his sword. "You should have told me, old man."

"When, and for what purpose? Before you learned Jinzen, we only talked in times of crisis. Even now, there is nothing you can do, and your soul grieves for it."

"I still should have known. She deserves it." His wielder sighed, and admitted, "…and they need to be able to stop it from happening."

"And if she could have existed again? What would your choice have been? Would you have put her life and the whole of the world on a scale?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes at the familiar phrase. Two weeks ago, he would have said yes without hesitation. In the heat of the argument with Nemu, he still would have said yes without hesitation. Now, though, he was calmer, and … "I don't know. But it still should've been my choice."

"Consider it, and remember your resolve. For now, deal with your audience." The sword departed back into his soul.

"Cryptic bastard…" Ichigo shook his head. He felt drained. Mostly emotionally, but he'd had a full day of training before the meeting, followed by a full night using his reiatsu to hold the manifestations and work the kido projector. He pushed his reiatsu outwards anyway, and yelled, "How long are you gonna stand there, Geta-boshi?"

"Your reiatsu senses have improved, Kurosaki-san." The shopkeeper stepped out of concealment, holding Ichigo's wrapped sword. "Welcome back. This was delivered shortly after Kurotsuchi-san arrived in Karakura. These are dangerous times to be unarmed."

"Have you been here the whole time?" He hadn't realized it before, but when he was using the projector his reiatsu senses were focused towards it, not on his surroundings. "It was a long night."

"You did not seem able to guard yourself." Urahara handed the sword to Ichigo, and it wrapped itself around the red chain over his golden shirt.

"I didn't have to. They knew you were around." That hadn't been the purpose of manifesting the two, but Ichigo realized in retrospect that having guards out when he was distracted and vulnerable was a considerable side benefit.

"Really? Interesting." The former captain took a seat on the riverbank next to him. "I owe you an apology."

"I already hit you for it."

"How fortunate for me that you came back in time, then!" He produced a fan from nowhere and fluttered it across his face.

"You did what you had to, and I'd have said yes if you asked. I pounded you for thinking I'd chicken out. You should apologize to Rukia, though."

Urahara nodded once, pulling his hat down with the tip of the fan. "I already have. She and Abarai-san delivered your sword."

Ichigo stiffened in alarm. "Did they get back to Soul Society?"

"Right on schedule, yes. I informed them of the risks, but it was a spontaneous journey. Intercepting a Senkaimon probably takes some prior planning."

"Good." Ichigo stood up. "Since I'm here anyway, I should go see the girls. Yoruichi said they were worried."

"Ah… I'm afraid that won't be possible, Kurosaki-san."

Ichigo frowned. "What?"

"They are under complete lockdown, and your image is the one Aizen is most likely to use to request entry." Ever-mindful of the recorders, he did not give any details about the location. "If you approach them, Hachigen will automatically thicken the defenses and sound the alarm."

"Oh."

"It will not be for much longer. You formed a Garganta for the first time last night, correct?"

"Yeah. If I can do it deliberately to get back to Soul Society, I'll be almost ready." He had not gone into Resurreccion, but meditation hadn't been doing anything and it didn't look like that would happen soon. It wasn't worth waiting for. He could see without sight for almost an hour, and realistically no fight between him and Aizen would last that long. He'd give Zangetsu-no-ossan a couple more days to look for Muramasa while he practiced running the Onmitsukido simulation blind, but if he hadn't found him by then he couldn't justify waiting any longer.

It came as something of a shock, after the activity of the last week-and-a-half, to realize that the training was nearly over. In three or four days, he would go to hunt a man down.

He shook off his somewhat morbid thoughts and stood, gathering his reiatsu in preparation for the journey. "See you in a few days, then."

"Kurosaki-san, may I suggest that you return to the shop with me?" Urahara got up as well and brushed himself off. "We are keeping Kon there, and it has been quite a while since you were last in your body."

"I don't really have the time."

"It is already getting close to noon in Soul Society. You have lost half the day anyway, and you have not slept. Eat and rest, and we will wake you up in time to return to Soul Society for the day's activities tomorrow."

"…all right." Ichigo allowed himself to be persuaded. He was tired enough to sleep for a day anyway, and being in his own body sounded almost comforting.

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When he washed his face very early the next morning, he looked into the mirror. It was odd seeing the differences that just a few months had made- the face was still his own, but seemed… less well-drawn. His body felt slightly cramped, as though he was constantly shoving against his own skin. Urahara had warned him to expect rapid growth and muscle formation over the next few weeks, as his body adjusted itself to the form his spirit thought it should be.

"Hey, Ichigo…" the little lion sitting on the toilet began, "have you ever noticed anything weird about the thing you use to project your memories?"

"Huh?" As he glanced over at the mod-soul, Urahara passed by and paused to wait for Ichigo within view of the half-open doorway. "It does what they said it would. Why?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all! It's normal!"

Ichigo looked at him in confusion, but decided to go with his usual fallback of ignoring the sounds coming from Kon's mouth and grabbed the pill out of the plushie. He swallowed it, and separated from his body once again.

"Take care of it, Kon."

"You can count on me!" Kon gave him a half-hearted salute. "And… good luck."

Ichigo nodded at him and went outside the shop, trailed by the rest of the residents. He thought back to the feeling he'd had when he fled the meeting, and remembered the need to be elsewhere.

With a rip, the air split open in front of him, revealing a swirling mass of reishi. With a final wave goodby, he hopped in and a path formed under his feet, a path that was solid and functional, although not particularly smooth or attractive.

When he reached Soul Society and passed through Jidanbo's gate, he went back to the Fourth for a change in clothing. He found Ishida and Inoue just returning from breakfast.

"Kurosaki-kun! You're back!" Orihime gave him a brilliant smile.

"Are you all right?" Ishida raised an eyebrow slightly. "Nemu-san came back yesterday."

"I'm fine. I slept at Urahara's place, in my body."

He found a T-shirt that he hadn't worn yet, and started to leave to change in the bathroom down the hall. Before he could leave the room, however, Orihime's voice stopped him.

"Um… Kurosaki-kun…"

"What is it, Inoue?"

"…did you love her?" Her voice was quiet, and her eyes were downcast.

Ichigo closed his eyes, and gave her the truth. "…I don't know."

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A/N.

Really. No non-canon pairings. I promise. Senna's out of the picture for good. The Ichigo/Nemu thing… yeah, I don't know where that came from, but I ran with it because of the hollow-Ichigo talk, which I thought was a good way to break the mood. I made _myself_ depressed with that scene.

This chapter, incidentally, was the reason I originally made up the memory projector instead of just using explanations or flashback scenes. The memory projector's ability to recall the forgotten memories was established back in chapter 4 during Kyoraku's 'Pretty women!' joke.

The theories of physical time-travel and chaos theory that Nemu mentioned were made up by people much smarter than me. See the chapter's disclaimer for more details on the time-travel references. Saido Eikichiro is an anime-only shinigami that helped during the fight between Ichigo and Grand Fisher. I'd only read the manga of that fight until this chapter, but when I watched that scene on YouTube I decided to include him since Ichigo was training with lower-ranked Onmitsukido for the first time this chapter.

As I mentioned in the beginning A/N for the last chapter, I have never seen most of the Bount arc and didn't care enough about the Bount scenes in my story to change that. Although I may go back eventually and edit some of the 'flashback' scenes that people suggested were too short, like the Fake Karakura Town arc and the Diamond Dust Rebellion, the Bount arc will stay off-screen and will not be changed unless someone points out something wrong with any of the very vague stuff that I did include. If I didn't need the Quincy Bangle to appear later in the story, I'd have given the entire arc one or two sentences at the most.

No teaser this week; I haven't made up any memorable lines yet.


	12. Chapter 11 Old Age and Treachery

This chapter is a more than a month later than I said it would be. My apologies. The real-life reasons why sound ridiculous even when I tell them to myself, so I won't repeat them here, but I can assure you that it will not happen again. I wanted to post it last weekend, but there were tech issues that other people subsequently solved. This chapter is dedicated to them, and to the many readers who reviewed/PM'd me to ask where the update was and if I was alive. Nagging works, people! Hopefully this chapter is worth the wait.

**Warnings:** None for language, surprisingly. There is some pretty graphic violence and my inadequate attempt at portraying political intrigue.

The chapter title comes from the saying 'Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill.'

Disclaimer: Tite Kubo and various other people own Bleach. The quote 'Revolutions always come around again. It's why they're called revolutions' is from Terry Pratchett's book Night Watch.

Note for the people who haven't re-read the earlier chapters recently: The name for Yamamoto's bankai was changed to Yōyū Uchigami (溶融土神), traslated as 'Melting Earth God', from the Google-translator derived Yōyū Chikyū Akuma (Molten Earth Demon) at the suggestion of the reviewer Reikson.

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As the monthly tea ceremony in the First Division ended, Ukitake strode past the departing officers with Kyoraku following in his wake. He was carrying a handheld kido device, of the type Mayuri sometimes used to project three-dimensional images of terrain in Captain's meetings. Unohana, upon seeing the device in his hand and the determined look on his face, decided to remain for what she suspected would be an interesting discussion. She joined the Soutaicho in the hall before his two students intercepted them, and the four senior captains retired to Yamamoto's office.

"Yamamoto-soutaicho, I respectfully request that you curb Mayuri." Ukitake turned the imager to the 'on' setting and a poor-quality, pale yellow hologram of Ichigo and Senna appeared between them in miniature.

/_"Is it there?"_

"_Yeah, it is. You used to live in this town, and you had a family."_/

Ukitake turned the device off and continued, "The Twelfth began mass-producing these yesterday after his lieutenant returned from the human world. He has converted the entire sequence of events concerning the Shinenju into this format, and the initial sales have been good enough that he has begun converting the rest of the images from the meetings in the last few weeks. This has to be stopped; the boy's privacy has been violated enough!"

Unohana interjected a question before Yamamoto could respond. "Did you confiscate the imager from Kiyone, Ukitake-taicho?"

"He was visiting me," Kyoraku answered. "Nanao-chan had it. I hadn't thought she'd be interested in that sort of thing."

"On the contrary, the Vice-president volunteered to oversee the distribution." Unohana gracefully poured four bowls of tea from the pot brought by an unseated officer. "She found the story quite moving."

Ukitake stared at her in surprise. "How did the SWA become involved in this travesty?"

"We are handling the marketing, at Kurotsuchi-fukataicho's suggestion," the Association chairwoman answered serenely. "It was a natural extension of one of our recent fundraisers."

"Kurosaki has shared his personal experiences out of a sincere desire to help us prepare for the future." Ukitake's voice and movements as he accepted the tea radiated his disapproval. "Broadcasting those experiences throughout Soul Society does his generosity a grave disservice."

Unohana smiled at him. "It was at his request, actually. He wishes for the Shinenju's sacrifice to be remembered. The project was initially begun by Kurotsuchi-fukataicho, not her father."

Kyoraku pushed his hat back slightly as he took his own bowl. "Did Kurosaki say how?"

"He did not specify a methodology, no." She handed Yamamoto the third serving and took the final one for herself. "However, I do not believe that there is a more memorable way to fulfill his desires. Surely we owe him this much."

Ukitake grimaced as she neatly turned his argument against him. "That does not, however, extend to distributing all of the information he chose to share in the meetings. Much of it was quite personal."

She nodded, acknowledging the point. "Mayuri-taicho may have become… overenthusiastic. I had not heard he was extending the project, and I do not think he has the authority to release that information to the general public."

"I granted permission for him to do so this morning. The distribution will begin as planned."

All three captains turned to stare at their superior, who had listened without comment to the entire argument before dropping the bombshell.

"…Sensei?" Ukitake could not believe he had heard correctly. If he had, any hope of protecting Kurosaki's privacy had just been destroyed.

"Why, Yama-jii?"

"The noble families began to jostle for the seats in the Central Chambers as soon as the announcement of the massacre was made. In a few weeks, the candidates will be reduced to a manageable number. We will have a government again in less than two months… and it is forbidden for a shinigami to acquire or attempt to attain hollow-like powers."

Kyoraku pulled his hat down slightly, trying to understand where his old teacher was going with the political summary. "…the effect on morale would be considerable, if they chose to give the order. The Eleventh would probably mutiny outright. Most of the senior officers like him in spite of themselves, and he is capable of becoming powerful enough to make attacking him difficult even if we had no doubts about the action."

"That law did not seem to be a problem in the future Kurosaki came from," Ukitake pointed out, also confused. "In the final fight, we appeared to know that he had a mask, and expected him to use it freely."

"We knew," Yamamoto confirmed, remembering Ichigo's willingness to use the mask when standing with the Ninth Division against Mayuri's sludge. "Whether the new government did is another matter, but we were at war and needed his power. My hope is that they knew and were more willing to make exceptions. In the first few years, they will not be so set in their ways, and some of the more ambitious will seek to make their mark on Seireitei's laws. Changing one of the old laws early in their tenure would be a way to assert decisive leadership."

Unohana nodded slowly, beginning to understand. "You wish to make him into a young, popular hero. Someone their daughters and nieces admire. Kurosaki acquired his hollow accidentally. If the crime is only for the attempt to gain hollow powers, rather than for actually having them…"

Ukitake's eyes narrowed as he extrapolated the chain of thought. "…then we would suddenly have a surplus of potential candidates for the open slots in the Fifth and Ninth divisions. Do you think Shinji Hirako or Kensei Mugarama would want their positions back?"

"From what Shihoin has said I doubt it, but if the law is changed I will make the offer."

"And if it isn't, Yama-jii?" his laconic student asked him. Kyoraku, always the most perceptive despite his bumbling exterior… "If they order us to take him out? Will the individual justice outweigh the global justice?"

Yamamoto stayed silent long enough to make them wonder if he had fallen asleep sitting up. "It never can. If I refuse the order, they cannot force me to obey. No one will listen to the government, if I do not."

Shunsui tried again. "He's a good kid."

"He stood against me. After a thousand years, he stood against me."

And that was the crux of the matter; that was the reason he had chosen to begin to train him personally in tactics and leadership rather than leave it to the Onmitsukido. He needed to know the child, needed to understand his personality and be able to predict his reactions.

'In one thousand years, no shinigami stronger than myself has been born.'

The words of his future self, spoken to a megalomaniac with, at best, a mere two times the power of the average captain. Those words might even still be true; they had not fought seriously to find out. Kurosaki Ichigo had not tried to harm him, and Yamamoto had not known who he was attacking. But Yamamoto knew his subordinates well, and knew that every single one of them had wondered who would have won the fight if the young human-hollow-shinigami hybrid had chosen to attack in earnest.

"He is still young, and growing quickly." Unohana looked out into the peaceful garden, thinking of how rapid his growth had been. "We should nurture his potential, not try to cut it off."

"Ah, well, Kurosaki's not interested in politics; he won't care about forty-six old men. If they don't bother him, he won't bother them. It'll probably be OK." Kyoraku took a sip of swiftly-cooling tea.

"He is not interested in gaining political power." Yamamoto was almost certain of that. He had rarely met anyone less likely to become a dictator. "But he has no respect for authority and a tendency to defend anyone he regards as persecuted. If he continues to fall for every story that comes his way, it is only a matter of time before he ends up on the wrong side of the next rebellion. He will not attempt to rule, but he could become a revolutionary. It would not end well."

Revolutions always came around again. It was why they were called revolutions. A century later, the same sort of men would rise to the top. If Kurosaki replaced a government once, he could do it again, and the suffering and death would continue with each cycle.

"He's still a child," Ukitake pointed out, "and he has not yet gone against the Central Chambers. Kuchiki's execution was ordered by Aizen, not the government. He will not be a threat unless we make him into one. Preemptive action is unnecessary."

"Let us hope they see it as such," the captain of the Fourth said quietly. "Let us hope the new Forty-Six are more tolerant of… anomalies than their predecessors were."

"Maybe we'll get lucky." Shuunsui gazed at his mentor shrewdly. "Still, the stories he's told give away a lot of information, Yama-jii. It's a risk to tell everyone our skills."

Yamamoto answered the unstated question with one of his own. "What do you think of his leadership potential?"

Unohana raised her brows slightly. "I do not think we are desperate enough to give a teenager a white haori, and I do not think he would accept it if we did. Kurosaki is devoted to his family and friends, and has not given any indication that he would choose to leave his mortal life. Nor should he; it has barely begun. If he joins the Gotei 13 after he dies, the open positions will have been filled for decades."

"Not the Fifth, and not the Ninth. The First."

The silence that followed lasted longer than any that had come before it, as his subordinates paused to take in his meaning. It was tactless, perhaps, to suggest the possibility to the captains who would be first in line to step into his position should he die, but Yamamoto was confident that none of the three were foolish enough to want the job.

Ukitake was the first to speak. "Soul Society has yet to see a being capable of replacing you. Kurosaki is a fine young man, but…" he trailed off, shaking his head.

"The kid can lead, but he's not a commander." Kyoraku once again remembered a young giant risking his life to save a near-stranger for the sake of a promise. "His friends follow him to the ends of the worlds because he'd do the same for them, not because they trust him to give good orders."

"When he needed backup, though, a quarter of the captains and half of the vice-captains followed him into an unstable dimension," Unohana murmured. "The ability to inspire loyalty is not a small thing. The captain-commander is not, in my professional opinion, in danger of dying soon. Kurosaki-san may someday become capable."

"I consider only the possibility," Yamamoto responded, acknowledging the objections he had already considered. A great deal would depend on how the boy handled power and responsibility in the coming decades. "He is painfully young, but humans mature quickly. In less than a century he will be a grandfather, and be able to see the shades of grey he cannot detect now."

"It's iffy, Yama-jii. If the Central Chambers cooperates, if he's mature enough, if he's powerful enough, if he even keeps his memories after he dies..." Kyoraku didn't want him placing too much hope on the prospect. They had all seen powerful shinigami come and go, and Kurosaki Ichigo's situation was too unique to predict what would happen after his death.

"The possibility is worth the effort, and the risk. I will see how he chooses to live his life. Whether he keeps his memories or not, he will retain his Zanpakuto. After he dies he will likely join the ranks formally. The Academy, and a seated officer's position upon graduation."

"I'll take him," Ukitake said with a smile. His hesitation to find another lieutenant after Shiba Kaien's death had become the subject of years of gentle mockery from both Kyoraku and Unohana.

Yamamoto acknowledged the offer with a snort. "He'll make captain quickly, one way or another. After a century or two in the military, he may be able to fill my haori."

"And if the Central Chambers is not reasonable?" The question was from Unohana this time, and this time, Yamamoto remained silent.

In his chambers that evening he stared at the letter he had prepared for Kurosaki when Aizen was dead, remembering a request from the sword he relied on far too heavily. (And that was another area where improvement was needed; the boy specialized in Zanjutsu and was competent in Hakuda and Hoho, but had no skill in Kido at all, and a senior officer needed to be well-rounded). He had not responded to the spirit's proposition in the days since it had been made. The Ban release was not something to be entered lightly, and Kurosaki's current level was more than sufficient to defeat Aizen.

If it came to it, would it be sufficient to defeat Yamamoto?

_/"Will the individual justice outweigh the global justice?"_

"_It never can."/_

It never could. But a preemptive order to eliminate the young man would not be just, and Kurosaki's potential, for good or bad, was unmatched.

He shared his thoughts with the spirit housed within his soul and the cane at his side. Ryuujin Jakka stirred, rousing itself from the banked flames of a hearthfire to the internal conflagration that, released, would burn all of creation to ashes. He was willing; willing to cross blades with the young upstart spirit that dared call challenge; willing to test the sword newly forged from the soul of a human; willing to judge the mettle of a successor fortuitously come in the twilight of their existence.

_/"And if the Central Chambers is not reasonable?"/_

And this time, he answered the memory.

"Then when I take the field against him, he will be able to fight against me with all of his power."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

On the fourteenth day after the Hogyoku brought him back to the past, Ichigo looked over at the sunny sky of his inner world at the feeling of a presence that did _not_ belong in Urahara's cavern. People came to the Captain-commander, not the other way around. The hollow sonido'd next to him with a feral grin on his face.

"Call the old man back."

"What? What's going on?"

"Trust me on this one. Call him back. We'll need him."

Ichigo shook his head at the 'trust me' request, which would have been unthinkable just a month ago, but ended the manifestation that let his sword traverse the districts of the Rukongai. Zangetsu-no-ossan appeared next to them and glanced at the sideways sky.

"He has come. I had begun to think he would refuse."

"Why's he here, ossan?" Ichigo was beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

"You told my younger self that you would be reluctant to challenge the Soutaicho." The zanpakuto turned back to his wielder calmly. "I did so on your behalf."

"What?" Ichigo blinked as the older mans' statement sunk in. His sword had challenged him. His sword had _called out_ Yamamoto. Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni. The Soutaicho of the Gotei 13 for the last thousand years. "_ARE YOU INSANE?"_

"There's only one way to wake up your fighting instincts, King, and it's not meditation. The old bastard's the only one powerful enough."

Ichigo shook his head, still in shock. "You just want to- to see which of you is _stronger_! This isn't a contest!"

"There is no doubt in my mind as to who is stronger." The zanpakuto favored him with a grim smile. "Today I will see how far we have to go. Renji and Ikkaku could not do enough damage to force you to enter Resurreccion, and you did not wish to hurt them. The circumstances caused you to heal yourself of your injuries rather than increase your power. Here, that will not be the case."

The power outside of his body, which Ichigo could only sense dimly, suddenly increased.

"Shikai." The hollow's grin widened. "Better get out there, partner."

Ichigo opened his eyes in the outer world, intent on convincing Yamamoto to back down. He pulled Zangetsu-no-ossan with him; the sword had gotten him into this and he was going to help get him out. The oldest man in Soul Society stood in front of him bare-chested with his sword aflame, but he had not yet formed any barriers of fire.

"It's about time."

"Jii-san, I didn't know about this. I don't want to fight you." Ichigo stood from the pose for Jinzen, but did not raise his sword to a fighting position.

"Then this'll be a short match, young'un." Yamamoto suddenly appeared in front of Ichigo with his hand extended for a palm strike. Ichigo flew back twenty feet before flipping in mid-air and landing on his feet.

"I don't know what he told you, but I don't need this!" Ichigo shunpoed away as Yamamoto appeared beside him again. They all knew that the Captain-commander was toying with him.

"I disagree," the zanpakuto spirit said, moving away from the fight. "This is the only way."

In the next attack Yamamoto used Ryujjin Jakka, and Ichigo brought Zangetsu up barely in time to block the blow. When the white ribbons on Ichigo's sword unraveled, Yamamoto grunted in satisfaction and pulled back.

"It doesn't matter what you want, infant. It doesn't matter what you need. You've called me out, and I'm here. I will not leave this cavern without seeing your true power, and I am prepared to do what it will take to force it to come out." He planted the tip of his sword on the ground. "Ban-kai."

Zangetsu nodded once in satisfaction, departing the field of battle to watch from a distance as the flames on Yamamoto's blade were extinguished and the ground split open between him and Ichigo. The obsidian dragon rose from the molten lava, and Yamamoto's already-formidable reiatsu increased by an order of magnitude.

"Yōyū Uchigami."

Ichigo fell to his knees under the weight of the crushing spirit pressure. It felt like his fight with Ururu after Byakuya destroyed his borrowed power, but a hundred times worse. Every breath was a struggle.

'**Why are you kneeling, King?'**

A flash of memory, of him taunting an enemy in the same manner. / _"Why are you kneeling, Aizen?"_/

'**Pathetic. Is this all you've got?'**

No. No, it wasn't, and every part of him knew it, and he _would not kneel to anyone_. Ichigo forced himself onto one knee, and then surged to his feet with a blue aura shimmering around him. He pulled his left hand across his face and lifted his sword as his doubled tones echoed through the cavern.

"All right, Gramps. If this is what you want, let's go."

According to both Urahara and his zanpakuto, the best way to increase a human's spirit power was to put the soul in danger of termination. He got the feeling that moving would be considerably easier by the end of the fight.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Yamamoto sighed slightly as the boy folded under his spirit pressure as quickly as every other captain-class shinigami he had fought over his long lifetime. It had been foolish, perhaps, to get his hopes up… but he stopped the thought as Kurosaki rose up again to stand tall against the full force of his reiatsu.

The fight started with an energy scythe from the masked Vizard. The power of the Getsuga Tensho was not affected by Yamamoto's reiatsu, and Yamamoto realized with mild approval that the boy was avoiding close-in fighting until he was better able to move. He wouldn't get away with it, of course.

Yoyu Uchigami batted the attack away contemptuously and it was diverted to explode on the distant wall. The dragon appeared next to his opponent with a speed the boy couldn't have matched even under ordinary circumstances and sent him flying away with a clawed chest. Ichigo twisted to land on his feet, and the bone-deep clawmarks over his ribs healed without a trace.

Yamamoto was distracted from the fight by the swift approach of many distant auras from the direction of the Seireitei. As Ichigo charged his Bankai with a battle-cry, the Soutaicho cast a rapid Tentaikura without either incantation or ink to communicate with the officers that had come running when they sensed their commander enter the final release.

"Return to your divisions. Everything is under control. That is an order." The reiatsu signatures of the oncoming shinigami halted, and then all save a few turned back. As he kept half an eye on the conflict (Ichigo had injured the dragon for the first time by coming close enough to take out an eye before the dragon smashed him into the ground; the injuries on both sides healed swiftly) Yamamoto took note of the ones that lingered. Shihoin Yoruichi, Abarai Renji, Madarame Ikkaku, Matsumoto Rangiku and… Hitsugaya Toshiro. Interesting.

"I repeat. That is an _order_." Four of the five retreated. The last aura paused, catlike, to make it clear that she did not follow his commands, and that when she finally did return it would only be because she chose to do so. It still baffled him how the woman had been so successful as a captain.

Kurosaki had retreated into the sky while Yamamoto had been distracted, but had found that the dragon had no trouble following him. Boy and wingless dragon faced each other standing in midair, and Ichigo gathered every ounce of the speed he had recovered in the last few minutes… only to have the dragon turn and land lightly behind his master.

"I grow impatient, young'un." Yamamoto flashed in front of Ichigo with both hands extended, as fast as the dragon had done in its game of cat-and-mouse. "Sokotsu."

Ichigo took both blows squarely on the torso.

He plummeted.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

There was a hole in his chest, and although it was healing it was too slow, and too many organs were damaged, and as he fell to the ground his vision darkened, but he was still aware, could still _feel_ his life draining away-

'**Idiot! Get up!'**

**-**funny, didn't the hollow want control of the body? He couldn't remember anymore. He could feel himself fading, and he was _tired._ Tired of fighting, tired of trying, tired of looking for his friends in the faces of suspicious strangers-

'**Get up! Get up! Get up!'**

- and _that_ wasn't the voice he wanted to hear as he was dying, and couldn't he just shut up for once-

"If you die here, Ichigo, Aizen will win. Will you leave them unprotected?"

-and every fiber of his being cried out in rejection of the idea, as his sword had known it would, and the answer would always be no, and he once again _reached_ down into the depths of his soul-

-but it was too much, and he was too damaged and in too much pain, and he began to lose himself to the monster within-

'**Use your instincts, or they'll use you! Are you still the king?'**

-but this time the monster within didn't want him to be lost-

"Is this how you want to win, Ichigo?"

/_Himself, facing a pale-faced arrancar whose wings were disintegrating into dust._

"_I don't want to win like this!"_/

"Who will you attack this time, if you lose youself?"

- and his sword was a _bastard_, but despite everything he still liked the grizzled old man who had reduced him to this and didn't want him to die-

/ _"Can't you hear me, Kurosaki? I said stop it! If you keep this up, you won't be human anymore!"_/

- and he was human. He was still human despite everything, and he _would not lose that_, even to the most primal parts of himself, and he clung onto the part that was Ichigo even as he forced himself back onto his knees as his power swelled into his chest-

"What will you do, Ichigo?"

-what was the answer? What had the answer always been?-

/"_Help… Help you. I'll help you."_/

-always and forever-

"PROTECT, Zangetsu!"

-and he released the power within him, and for the first time surfed on the waves of insanity without falling under, and even as the hole in his chest became part of his body he knew it was not permanent, and his heart was still his own, and had not been overwhelmed by his destructive potential-

-and he was still Ichigo.

He had hollowified, and had not lost himself.

_He had done it!_

He rose to his feet, and opened his eyes, and looked at his hands.

His white, clawed hands.

… did he have a _tail?_

"What the hell?"

In the depths of his soul, the hollow began laughing.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Yamamoto watched carefully as Ichigo fell. Had he misjudged the force to use? The boy's injuries were not quite as bad as he recalled from the projection of the fight against the Cuarta Espada, but Kurosaki was not currently in Bankai and lacked the physical endurance he gained from his final release. The spirit of his zanpakuto left his silent observation at the top of a rock outcropping and jumped down to land between Yamamoto and Ichigo.

"If you die here, Ichigo, Aizen will win. Will you leave them unprotected?" The sword's voice was expressionless as he looked down at his fallen wielder. Although the boy showed no outward sign that he had heard the question, his reiatsu began to shift, becoming darker and more powerful. The Soutaicho had not felt anything like it since the last time he had fought a Vasto Lorde.

"Is this how you want to win, Ichigo? Who will you attack this time, if you lose yourself?"

Yamamoto raised his brows slightly at the implications of the zanpakuto's words. "I have little to fear from a mindless beast." It was worth remembering, though, that the dark man felt that a threat to his safety would motivate the boy.

Zangetsu-no-ossan ignored him. "What will you do, Ichigo?"

The young man's orange hair began growing, from halfway down his neck to beyond his shoulders. He used his sword as a crutch to push himself to his knees despite the slowly-healing wound through his body, yellow eyes glowing from behind the half-shattered mask. "PROTECT, Zangetsu!"

Yamamoto could briefly see a white substance exploding from the wound before the space around Kurosaki exploded into black light, dust, and chips of obsidian as his opponent's aura increased drastically. As the dust began to settle, though, he found himself… disappointed. The transformation had taken place, but the power increase was not what Yamamoto had hoped for. Kurosaki had indeed become more powerful, perhaps by an order of magnitude, but the presence he now sensed was not what he had estimated would be necessary to defeat a probable Vasto-Lord-class arrancar with a second resurreccion.

"What the hell?"

The spirit standing between them coughed suddenly as Yamamoto frowned and walked forward, peering at the figure becoming visible in the dust. It was a hollow, yes, but not the one he had been expecting.

Kurosaki Ichigo's body was now covered in white and considerably broader and more muscular, with a black-tipped tail, tri-clawed feet, spikes, black markings running up his arms and legs, and orange hair that stretched down his back. The only parts of him that remained the same were the tattered hakama still belted around his waist, the giant sword in his hand, and the white and black mask that was now a part of his face.

"Kurosaki Ichigo, are you yourself?"

The boy ignored him in favor of turning around and looking at his new appendage. "Oh, no. No. I ain't fighting like this. I look like a lizard."

The choking sounds next to Yamamoto became louder, and the old man realized that the sword was valiantly trying not to laugh out loud. "You planned this."

"He has never seen this form in any manner." Zangetsu-no-ossan bit his lip, bringing his expression under control. "We have spent some time speculating about his likely reaction."

"Bastards. He's laughing it up too," Ichigo muttered. He let go of his tail and turned to point the cleaver in his hand at the zanpakuto spirit. "You. Inside. Now."

The body formed from Ichigo's power dematerialized, and Ichigo gripped his sword in both hands, keeping it pointed in Yamamoto's direction. His aura exploded into blue light, and swirling clouds appeared just under the cavern's roof.

"BAN-KAI." A wave of energy shot from his sword directly at Yamamoto, who shielded himself with a hastily-muttered Bakudo #81: Danku. The surroundings exploded yet again, and this time when the dust cleared, the form that Kurosaki had taken on was the humanoid one that Yamamoto had expected, clad in the now-familiar black coat. The fully-released Vizard held a daito in one pale hand, and although his mask retained its markings it had grown two forward-thrusting long horns.

"Tensa Zangetsu."

Yamamoto breathed in, tasting the power that pressed down upon him as though he were at the bottom of an ocean. Yes. Yes, this was acceptable.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo breathed in, holding onto his control as he adjusted to his new body. He felt… buoyant. As though he were moving in air once again after pushing through syrup the entire fight.

"Are you sane, Kurosaki Ichigo?" the old man asked again.

"Yeah, Jii-san. I'm still me." The masked young man pulled his now waist-length silken hair away from his neck with one hand and used Tensa Zangetsu to attempt to reduce it to a more manageable length. The sword that could no longer cut him passed harmlessly through his hair. "You've gotta be kidding. This had better go back to normal when I take the mask off; I haven't been able to find a barber anywhere."

"Then prepare yourself, young'un." The dragon raised itself from where it had been lying dormant behind Yamamoto, observing the transformation alongside its master. "Bakudo…"

As he spoke the first syllable Kurosaki disappeared from in front of him. Yamamoto's sword came up to block the strike suddenly coming in from the right. He flash-stepped into the air and barely turned around in time to block the second blow from behind him, and was pushed back by the force as he incanted "Seventy-three…"

The last attack came from the front, and Yamamoto simultaneously dodged the strike and finished the spell. "…Tozansho."

An inverted pyramid of blue light sprung up around the old man, forcing Ichigo away as Yoyu Uchigami moved in. It interspersed itself between its wielder and Ichigo, forcing the masked boy to jump away as the obsidian lizard shot towards him at a speed he now had no problem matching and exceeding.

"Limit of the thousand hands, respectful hands, unable to touch the darkness."

As he heard Yamamoto begin another spell Ichigo dodged past the teeth and swung his sword, and the air pressure from the passing of the blade as the dragon dodged formed a crevasse in the floor of the increasingly battered training ground. It instantly filled with lava as the dragon fired at him, and Ichigo darted past it to charge at the barrier around Yamamoto.

"Shooting hands unable to reflect the blue sky."

The first strike of his sword caused visible cracks to appear in the surface, and before he got the chance for a second Yamamoto opened his eyes slightly and increased the power to the barrier until it was nearly blinding and he could no longer see the old man. His hearing was fine, though, and the Soutaicho had never stopped chanting.

"The road that basks in light, the wind that ignited the embers…"

Ichigo was forced to turn suddenly and block the dragon's claw coming at his head, and jumped higher into the air as the dragon followed him. "Getsuga Tensho!"

"…time that gathers when both are together, there is no need to be hesitant, obey my orders."

The energy blast was more powerful than anything that had come out of his sword before or since the fight with Aizen, but the dragon countered by shooting a golden beam of light bordered by fire from its mouth, and the ensuing explosion sent both combatants flying back to the far corners of the cavern.

"Light bullets, eight bodies, nine items…"

_Of course_ the lava wouldn't be the dragon's only attack, even _Renji_ had more than one way to attack with his Bankai. The old man had to be nearly done with his chant, and with a buildup that big it had to be one of the higher-level spells. Since he had used the incantation it would be at full power, and the Soutaicho had a _lot_ of power…

"…diseased treasure, great wheel, grey fortress tower."

Ichigo dodged the dragon's next charge and appeared next to the barrier, in an unconscious move that was half-shunpo, half-sonido, and all speed, and for the first time began to charge up a cero under his own volition. He let his instincts tell him what to do, and a point of red light focused between the horns of his mask.

"Aim far away, scatter brightly and cleanly when fired."

The attack took precious seconds to focus, and another to release, but a devastating ball of energy shot towards the barrier- more than enough to destroy it and pass through to disrupt the spell forming behind the protection…

"Hado Ninty-one…"

But the Soutaicho's Bankai moved between the Cero and the barrier as fast as the old man could think of the need, and the red ball of energy went down the dragon's throat and exploded, reducing the upper third of the dragon to a shower of lava and passing through it to impact the barrier.

"Senju Koten Taiho."

Under the impact of the cero the pyramid shattered into sparkles of blue light, leaving the Soutaicho standing on air with his left hand pointing directly towards Ichigo. The hovering comets of blinding violet light that surrounded him shot towards Ichigo, who barely raised his sword-arm in time to protect his face, and impacted.

Ichigo plummeted to the ground with a muffled scream of pain, the exposed half of his mask shattered and his face, arm, and torso severely burned. His sword fell from the bare bones that had been his right hand and pierced the black surface a good distance away from its wielder, who managed to turn in midair and land on one knee breathing heavily.

Yamamoto raised his eyebrows in surprise as, below him, Ichigo pushed himself to a standing position. The exposed half of his face was the first to finish healing. Both golden eyes looked in disbelief at the obsidian dragon as its head regrew from the lava flowing through the cracks in the partially-cauterized stump. "What does it take to kill that thing?"

"As with any Bankai, it will exist as long as I have the reiatsu to keep it manifested. As I recall, Aizen once asked the same of you. What will it take to keep you down, boy?" The full incantation of one of the most destructive Hado, cast by the most powerful shinigami in existence, and it had only caused swiftly-healed nerve and tissue damage. His now-tattered coat suggested that the boy's reiatsu was not limitless, but neither was Yamamoto's, and their first exchange had shown both that Kurosaki was now faster than him and that the power of his blows was once again great enough to rearrange the landscape. It would be better to end the fight quickly, or Kurosaki might have a stronger claim to his position than he wanted.

Ichigo thrust out his hand as the muscles on his right arm finished growing and the white skin reformed. Tensa Zangetsu flew through the air to land squarely in his palm, and with a sharp jerk of his left hand across his face his mask was healed, shattered horn and all. "Let's find out, Gramps."

A swing of his sword sent a black crescent towards the dragon, and as it twisted out of the way Ichigo used the distraction to blur to Yamamoto's side. He was too far inside the old man's guard for him to block the blow, and it was only the reflexes of centuries of fighting that enabled Yamamoto to flash-step away with a cut across his ribs instead of a sword through his stomach.

Before Ichigo could follow him, however, Yamamoto attacked him physically for the first time since Ichigo had hollowified. Their swords crossed, and when Ichigo's primary weapon was occupied, the Soutaicho raised two fingers from the grip on his sword and said, briefly, "Sai."

It was the simplest of the demon arts, but even the simplest spell could be devastating in the hands of a powerful user. Ichigo's arms snapped close to his side as his opponent's blade cut his arm open to the bone. Ichigo moved away without pausing for the second it would take to break the binding as Yamamoto pursued him, waiting for the opening. Finally, when the wound to his arm had healed, Ichigo stayed in one place long enough to focus on the invisible cords of reiatsu surrounding him, and Yamamoto flashed above and in front of him with his sword raised to strike down.

"Bala."

Yamamoto's eyes widened as a bullet of red light appeared at the tip of each horn and instantly shot forward, incinerating the lower third of his beard and burning into his stomach. As he flew back Ichigo shrugged off the kido binding his arms and prepared to follow him-

-only to have to dodge to the side with a curse as a golden beam of light passed through the air where he had been standing.

He turned to face Yoyu Uchigami once again, trusting to his superior speed and reiatsu senses to guard his back from Yamamoto's blade. Destroying the dragon wouldn't kill it, but it would take it out of the action while it healed. If the reformation was anything like what Renji did when he attached the segments of Hihio Zabimaru back together, then healing the dragon also took some effort on Yamamoto's part. Repeatedly destroying his Bankai would wear the Soutaicho down faster than almost anything else Ichigo could do to him.

He formed a Getsuga Tensho and kept it within the blade to enhance Tensa Zangetsu's power, and as the dragon rose up to hover in midair he dodged the ball of fire coming in from his left side ("Kongobaku!") and darted forward. The blade pierced the dragon's obsidian jaw up through what would have been the brainpan if it had been a living creature.

In the barest instant after his sword cut through the obsidian, as Ichigo released the power stored in his sword, Yoyu Uchigami's front claws caught hold of Ichigo and pierced deep to ensure that he could not escape. The move was faster than anything he had seen from the dragon yet, faster than it should have been capable of, and as he felt the buildup of reiatsu behind him he realized that the old man had anticipated Ichigo's attack and had been waiting for the opportunity.

The Getsuga Tensho destroyed the head, and because he could not move away, molten lava rained down on Ichigo's eyes, throat, and exposed torso as he released the air in his lungs in a strangled scream. The claws buried in Ichigo's sides were still intact, and boy and dragon plummeted together. Their landing formed one more crater in the solidifying lava that now covered the training ground.

Ichigo was blind, but the lack of sight was no longer an obstacle, and he pulled the claws out of him and rolled away, _shoving_ his power to heal his throat so that he could breath, so that he could move- but the healing took seconds that he did not have.

"Bakudo #99 part 1: Kin."

His torso was suddenly wrapped in spirit ribbons, and he was pulled back down as the fabric was staked to the ground in an X-shape. His throat finished healing, and he coughed the blood up out of his airway and gasped for breath, ignoring the rest of his wounds and gathering his power to break the binding spell…

"Bakudo #99 part 2: Bankin."

…crap. He _pushed_, and the stakes from the first kido uprooted themselves and the cloth unraveled, but it was far too late, for the Soutaicho had landed next to him and placed his hands on the ground-

"First Song: Halting Fabric."

Instantly, Ichigo was completely mummified and bound to the ground once more. He roared instinctively, and his aura _exploded_ out to disintegrate the binding as he rolled out of the way, but he was nowhere close to being out of the range the next attack.

"Second song: Hundred Linked Bolts."

A rain of spikes fell down, pinning him to the ground once more, and this time the Captain-commander had not even paused for breath before continuing.

"Final song: Great Seal of Ten Thousand Forbiddings."

His eyes finally healed, and the first and last thing in Ichigo's vision was the immense metal cube falling from the sky.

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Yamamoto heaved a deep sigh as he felt the boy's aura drastically reduce, and finally diverted his power from casting the kido to reforming his Bankai. That he had to prioritize his reiatu use said more than he liked about how much the fight had taken out of him; he wasn't sure how many more times he could have healed the obsidian dragon. As the head reformed, Yoyu Uchigami rose and came to curl next to him. Yamamoto reached up to place a hand on the massive mane of living stone that grew from the dragon's bended neck, ignoring the temperature of the still-cooling surface. The heat of his sword would never hurt him.

'**Youth. And a bit of skill.'**

At the swift thought from the amused dragon, Yamamoto nodded curtly in agreement.

"It'll pass. They'll do, old friend. They'll do."

Suddenly, the Great Seal exploded in a flash of blue light as Kurosaki's spirit pressure flared up one final time. Yamamoto and his zanpakuto turned back to him in surprise while the blinding light faded as abruptly as it had appeared, and the figure on the ground was still once again.

'_Impossible.'_ Yamamoto walked to the human's side to inspect the damage. He was unconscious, but the Soutaicho's practiced eye judged that it was a peaceful slumber rather than the coma of a grievous injury. The flesh wounds and broken bones he had received from the seal and the claws of the dragon had disappeared in the last surge of reiatsu, leaving him unmasked and unharmed. As Yamamoto watched, the hole in his chest sealed and his porcelain skin regained its healthy tan. The final change was his hair, which faded from a waist-length orange mane to the ragged style he had sported since the beginning of his fight with Aizen.

"Not a scratch on him." Yamamoto shook his head and dropped out of the final release. Yoyu Uchigami sank into one of the many new pools of lava in the cavern, and with a thought the sword in Yamamoto's hand was covered in its familiar wooden shell. He retrieved his shihakusho and haori from the crevasse where he had stored them, and finally tossed the sleeping boy over one shoulder and flash-stepped to the corner of the cavern, where there was a hot spring that was largely untouched by the devastation around them.

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Ichigo woke with a gasp and a sputter as he was unceremoniously dumped into the hot water, still in what remained of his clothing.

'**It was the last test. Well done, Ichigo.**' At Tensa Zangetsu's quiet words, the last half-hour came flooding back, and Ichigo's mouth twitched up reluctantly. Bastards.

He glanced behind him to see Yamamoto sitting on a new obsidian outcropping with a green glow surrounding the hand held over his clothed stomach. "The spring's water can heal the wounds, Jii-san. Sorry 'bout your beard."

"While it is regrowing I will be reminded of the price of overconfidence. I saw your fight with the Cero Espada, but it had not occurred to me that you could use balas just as casually." It had not occurred to him because he had also seen the hollowified Ichigo fight the Cuarta Espada. Ichigo had not used any hollow technique that his past self had not also used, until he needed an attack that did not require the charge-up of a cero. He removed his hand from his stomach, ignoring the offer of the other healing method, and started on the cut on his ribs. "That was my primary mistake. Where did you go wrong, boy?"

Ichigo thought about it as he hauled himself out of the water. The first part of the fight didn't count. He'd known even as he fought the dragon that the thing had been toying with him. "I let your dragon trap me."

"You have a preference for personal attacks," Yamamoto confirmed. "Most of the duels you have shown us ended after a mutual kendo charge. I assumed that you would do the same at least once in this fight, and planned to take advantage of it. What else?"

"I got hit with a lot of your spells."

"You walked into the first one, boy," Yamamoto corrected gruffly. "You knew I was going to release the kido as soon as the barrier came down, but you knocked the barrier down anyway. Let your opponent release their barriers themselves, and get out of the way. Have you had any training in the demon arts?"

Ichigo shook his head.

"Get some. Develop all of your skills, or on the day when mere speed and power are not enough, you will die." That had happened to him uncomfortably often in Kurosaki's memories. Aizen and Amagai were prominent examples.

"I'm going to work on it. Ukitake-san suggested I ask my dad to teach me."

"If you attempt to learn through the usual methods, you will fail. Most shinigami learn how to cast spells when they are still learning to access their full power. They learn to increase the flow of their reiatsu when they grow skilled enough to handle the higher-level spells. You have the opposite problem. You have the reiatsu, and lack the skill and control needed to shape it."

"So?"

Yamamoto finished healing his ribs. "Begin practicing one of the higher-level binding kido. You will not have to be concerned about the amount of power you put into the spell, and over time you will grow skilled enough to form the correct shape. Move down to a lower kido and repeat the process. Eventually you will learn to decrease the flow of your reiatsu. It will take years, but you have a lifetime."

"How… 'd you know what to do?" Ichigo yawned. He finally dropped out of the final release, and the sword at his side shifted to a cleaver as the remaining scrap of his Bankai coat disappeared and his exhaustion increased tenfold.

"It is how I learned," Yamamoto replied. "The most difficult spell I used today was not the Bankin, it was the Sai…"

He felt the change in the human's aura once again and sighed as he stopped the explanation. There was no help for it, then.

"Come along, infant." He tossed the unconscious boy over his shoulder once again and flash-stepped out of the cavern.

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A/N

This chapter focused a lot on my Yamamoto's reasons for following the Central 46, which I mentioned cryptically in an earlier chapter. If I didn't make them clear enough, though, the questions to ask yourself are: How many military dictatorships work? Assuming that he doesn't want to rule for the entirety of a very long lifetime, what happens if Yamamoto overthrows a corrupt government and installs a new one, only to have them or their successors become corrupt in turn? Should he overthrow them again, and if so, when does the cycle (and the ensuing death and destruction inherent in a bloody revolution) stop? Assuming he has some reasonable level of self-doubt, how can he be sure that this time the overthrow is actually justified? Yamamoto is the single most powerful man in Soul Society, both in terms of reiatsu and in terms of powerful, loyal subordinates. If he refuses an order, there is no way anyone can force him to obey it. Therefore, he will not refuse a lawful order... and he lets other people make the laws. I think his statement to Ukitake and Kyoraku before their fight in the Soul Society arc, which I referred to in this chapter, sums up his attitude pretty well.

Of course, that's all balanced by the fact that the Seireitei government was corrupt and Aizen did everyone a favor. There's a significant generation gap, too. Yamamoto's old. Older than dirt. As I'm trying to write him, he's seen it all before, has very little idealism left, and has replaced it with rigid defining principles. For Ichigo, that's not the case.

The next chapter will be up on **Saturday, April 9th****.** That date is a promise; the chapter is mostly written. I'm traveling a lot in the next couple of weeks, though, and I'm not sure what my internet situation will be like on the weekend before that. I'll be using the time from now to then to go back and revise the flashback to the battle above Fake Karakura.

The teaser for the next chapter:

"Muramasa. Kuchiki Koga's inner world is an ocean filled with broken columns."

"Who are you?"


	13. Chapter 12 Inciting Rebellion

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

**Spoiler Alert**: As usual, the manga/anime up through the Deicide arc, and the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc for this chapter in particular

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; in this chapter, Ichigo's the one with a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

**Note: **I have made extensive edits to the Fake Karakura battle in chapter 6, and I encourage anyone who has been following the story to go back and read that section.

4/10/11 note: Many of you got multiple e-mails advertising the chapter yesterday. Blame the epic fail on fanfiction dot net, and sorry about spamming you in the attempts to actually post.

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Ichigo extended his senses outwards as he regained consciousness, sleepily feeling the reiatsu signatures of the people in the room. Next to him was… Kotetsu Isane, the vice-captain of the Fourth Division. She had a hand hovering directly over his heart, and he could feel the well of his reiatsu slowly filling. Hanataro was standing slightly behind her, and Ishida and Orihime were on their beds above and across from him, respectively. He finally opened his eyes and pushed himself up slightly, looking around.

"Welcome back, Kurosaki-san," Isane glanced up while Hanataro waved shyly and left the room. "How do you feel?"

"Fine." Ichigo pushed himself up fully and stretched as her hand fell away from his torso, though she kept the healing kido functioning. "A little tired, but fine."

"You did it," Ishida stated, leaning over the edge of the bunk to glance down at them.

"You felt the fight?" A dumb question, and Ichigo realized it as the words left his mouth. The training ground under the Execution Hill wasn't that far away from the divisions of the Gotei 13, and people had probably been able to feel their released powers out in the Zarakai District. "I mean, yeah. I did it."

"And?" Ishida made a slight gesture towards his stomach.

Ichigo winced. "I stayed in control. I don't think I'll be doing it too often, though."

Each time he hollowified it would be a battle between his heart and his instincts. He knew how to call on his hollow power, and had learned how to control his destructive potential, but it would always be difficult, and always the last resort. (For more reasons than one. He was _never_ going into Resurreccion without first being in Bankai. Never again.)

"Can you show us the fight, Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime bounced over and held out the memory projector to Ichigo, who took it while trying to think of a way out of displaying his hollow form. He didn't think Ishida would ever let him hear the end of it. He was rescued by a soft voice from the doorway.

"Yamamoto-soutaicho has requested that Kurosaki-san not show the fight," Unohana said, walking into the room with Hanataro trotting behind her holding a tray of food. "You will find that most of the older captains prefer to leave their most powerful techniques unseen."

Ichigo nodded, relieved. "Did you fix him too?"

"You were both unharmed. I restored the Captain-commander's spirit pressure when he dropped you off, and he returned to the First Division." She smiled down at him as Hanataro handed him the tray. "You did well."

Ichigo shrugged, shoving a roll into his mouth. At Unohana's sharp glance he flushed and began to eat more politely, but just as quickly. He was _starving_. "I don't think he was going all out."

"Undoubtedly, but I suspect you were not either. You were not trying to kill each other, Kurosaki-san." She raised a hand and a green shimmer began to float around her fingers as she began the kido to increase reiatsu. Isane gratefully let her take over, sweating slightly. Ichigo continued eating as she finished restoring his power to its normal levels.

"**Are you ready to leave, King?"**

Ichigo grimaced. He should have seen that coming.

After the healers had left and Ichigo had given a brief summary of the fight to his human friends, he leaned back in bed and pushed his heart into his sword.

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He opened his eyes onto his inner world. The blue sky was in front of him, and the hollow was off to his side. His sword was perched in his preferred position on a nearby flagpole, but jumped off it to join them as Ichigo turned to face his white counterpart.

"We're not done here yet."

"_We?_ I'm done. There's nothing left, _partner_._"_

Ichigo took a calming breath, thinking about the fragile truce that had sprung up from the hollow's desire for his heart and the inability of their swords to hurt each other. The avatar of his mask had gotten what it wanted; when he became one with his power, the hollow part of him would be as much a part of their makeup as the shinigami part. "_I'm _not done here, then."

The hollow snorted. "Together, we'll be able to kill anyone in that maze blindfolded with both hands tied behind our back. How long are you gonna put this off? Are you getting cold feet?"

"We still haven't taken care of Muramasa."

"Do you think Aizen's sitting on his ass, King? You're giving him time to figure out how to deal with you. Two weeks is too long. You're putting Karakura at risk by waiting. We merge, go to Hueco Mundo, and get this taken care of by this evening." The hollow's grin was decidedly smug.

"They need to have the information before we go." It was unlikely that Aizen would be able to kill him, but he couldn't take the chance.

"So give it to flower-boy and leave. He's not worth the extra time."

"You pity him too," Ichigo said quietly.

"I think he's pathetic. Big difference."

"Not really." Just add a heart, and they would be the same. Ichigo sighed and looked at Zangetsu-no-ossan. "How much time do you need?"

"I am close," his sword replied. "I found the first real trace of his reiatsu shortly before you called me back to battle the Soutaicho. If it is still there, I will find him today."

"He'll have moved again," the hollow said pessimistically. "You don't have the time."

"If you can find him today, we'll take care of it tomorrow. If not..." Ichigo trailed off, and forced himself to make the decision. Unfortunately, his hollow was right. Their time was limited. "If not, then we leave for Hueco Mundo."

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He flashed into the command station of the Onmitsukido's mockup of Hueco Mundo as the alarms began blaring and was instantly hit by a side kick to the stomach. He had reached it undetected, but Soi Fon had been facing the entrance, waiting for him to appear. According to the guidelines of the simulation she was now free to attack him, sound the alarm, and attempt to escape.

Ichigo had learned quickly not to move out of the way and let her get past him to the entrance. In a race he had no chance of catching her, and though they all knew he would be faster than Aizen it made the simulation more challenging for him if she didn't slow down. He took the side-kick with a grunt and retaliated with a knife-hand to the throat, the signal for an automatic 'kill'. As he was striking, his eyes widened behind the visor as he felt the hand coming from behind him, aiming at his own jugular. He didn't dodge.

He would have expected the hollow's distant voice to supply a mocking remark at this point, but Zangetsu-no-ossan had escorted him to meet Kenpachi on the Execution Hill before leaving on his final search. It shut the hollow up, and Ichigo had decided to trust for the first time that he would not jeopardize their status in the Seireitei before they had killed Aizen.

With both the target and the attacker 'dead', the simulation ended. Behind him, Yoruichi sighed and placed a hand on Ichigo's shoulder while Soi Fon turned off the alarm. "Try to avoid that, kid. This isn't a suicide mission. We want you back alive."

Ichigo removed the visor, shrugging. "I've killed her before without dying. Once isn't a big deal."

"Once is all it takes," she said, shaking his shoulder reprovingly. "Be careful."

"Sure." He brushed off her hand and turned towards the door. Soi Fon's voice stopped him.

"Kurosaki. You have successfully completed the simulation several times. There is little more that we have the time to teach you. When do you leave?"

He was glad he'd already made that decision. "Tomorrow or the day after."

She nodded curtly. "For the rest of the time you are here, the simulation will not end with my death. We have neglected to train you in extraction."

Extraction? …oh. "I'll just make a Garganta when I'm …finished. I don't think I'll need to get out of Hueco Mundo the hard way."

"There may be ways to prevent the formation of a Garganta, and if there are Aizen would certainly use them in his private quarters. Return to the entrance. Your goal is now to kill your target and make it out alive."

Ichigo looked at her, puzzled. "Um… OK." He actually wasn't sure why she was bothering.

Her eyes narrowed. "Even if you kill Aizen, your death would be a waste of the training we have given you. Do not fail, Kurosaki."

He raised his hand in acknowledgement and flash-stepped out of the room. Yoruichi shook her head and went back to her patrol.

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That evening, Ichigo felt his sword return to his soul. Rather than deal with the hollow again, he brought the older man out to where the three humans were lounging around the room in the fourth division that they had, without ever discussing it, continued sharing.

"I found him," Zangetsu-no-ossan said, with his usual lack of pleasantries.

Ichigo nodded, relieved. "I'll let Yoruichi know we won't be around tomorrow. We can head out after breakfast."

"Where are you going, Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime looked up from her newspaper curiously.

"There's a guy we want to talk to. He was murdered by someone he loved, and we're hoping we can stop it. I'll show you the memories when we get back tomorrow and I know how it turns out." Ichigo turned back to the zanpakuto spirit. "Can you resist his control?"

"He cannot affect us. Any of us. We will both play our parts tomorrow." With that, he disappeared.

"'Play their parts'? That sounds ominous, Kurosaki," Ishida said from the chair next to the window.

"Oh! They're going to be spies! Ishida-kun, can you make them tuxedos before they leave?"

Ishida and Ichigo looked at each other, simultaneously picturing Zangetsu-no-ossan in a formal tuxedo holding a martini. The image just didn't work.

"Sorry, Inoue. Their clothes are a part of them. I don't think they can change," Ichigo answered weakly.

"What are they going to be spying on, Kurosaki?" Ishida asked, slightly annoyed at the evasive answers Ichigo was giving them.

"Not spying. The guy might not want to listen to us. They can convince him to." Ichigo lay back on his bottom bunk, closing his eyes. "This is something we can take care of ourselves. It's the only major event I haven't told the captains about, and it's the last thing we need to do before we leave. If this goes OK, I'll open the garganta the day after tomorrow."

Ishida sighed. "…good luck, then."

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The next day, after Ichigo left, Rukia found Ishida and Orihime, both of whom were occupying their time in the crafts room.

"Do you want to see what Ichigo is doing?"

As she dragged them along, she explained how the recorders in Ichigo's memory projector really worked. Ishida was outraged.

"You've been _spying_ on us? !"

"Just on Ichigo!" Rukia defended. "The captains knew he wasn't telling them everything. They wanted to find out what was left."

"It's an invasion of privacy! How many people are going to be there? !"

"Just the vice captains and captains, and Ichigo's friends from the eleventh and myself since we are in so many of his memories." Rukia decided not to mention the thriving market in copies of the memories and kido projectors that had sprung up among the divisions, the noble families, and the upper districts of the Rukongai.

"I don't think that Kurosaki-kun would want us watching him today, Kuchiki-san," Orihime said quietly. "Something bad happened. I could see it in his eyes. He wants to fix it himself."

"This is the last time. He's going to leave tomorrow anyway. Besides," she said as she opened the door to a room lined with projection screens, "are you going to tell them to go?" Most of the assistant captains, including Sasakibe Chojiro of the first division, were already in the room sitting on cushions and talking quietly while kido projectors in the center of the room formed a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of Ichigo's current surroundings. At the moment, the view was moving past sickeningly quickly and no one was paying attention to the screens but Kurotsuchi Nemu, who was fiddling with the projector that sent the image to the ceiling.

"They look very… comfortable," Ishida remarked dryly. It was true. The atmosphere more resembled a social gathering than the military tribunal he had half-expected.

"Coming through!" Matsumoto shouted, carrying a huge bowl of popcorn and a number of smaller bowls. Ikkaku and Yumichika followed, carrying disturbingly familiar two-liter bottles and paper cups.

"_Coke?"_

"Rukia said this was a human tradition! Taicho confiscated the sake- something about it being too early to be drinking. He and the other captains will show up when it looks like Ichigo's gotten close to where he's going. We've all got hell butterflies." Ishida and Orihime turned to stare at Rukia, bemused, as the cheerful blond woman pushed past them and put the food under the projectors.

"I observed when interacting with the students in your school that these are the customary refreshments for gatherings of this sort. Is that not correct?" she asked, looking back at them calmly.

"You're treating this as a _movie night?"_

"His actions would make a better story than much of the entertainment I saw in the human world. Don't you enjoy watching the adventures you could have had?"

"We could serialize them, maybe!" Orihime suggested. "Shonen Jump would take the manga!"

Ishida sighed, giving up. He was curious too. They pulled up cushions, grabbed bowls of popcorn, and settled back to watch the show.

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Ichigo bounced through the trees, trading blows with Muramasa and driving him back. Simply showing up and asking what a zanpakuto spirit was doing wandering around alone had been enough to get Muramasa to attack him. He was unsurprised when the world suddenly started spinning and invisible cords bound him to the ground. Although he had cursed and struggled the first time, this time he just lay quietly. He wasn't a particularly good actor, and Muramasa wouldn't know to expect anything else.

"Listen to my voice. Obey your instinct and break your soul free. Abandon your fear."

Under Ichigo, a black and red void appeared and began whirling.

"Look forward. Go forward. Never stand still. Retreat and you will age."

A red mist began rising from Ichigo's body.

"Hesitate and you will die. Come." Muramasa reached one hand inside of Ichigo, grabbed, and pulled.

"Your name is Zangetsu!" This time, there was no pain, and no explosion. The avatars of Ichigo's power manifested and went to stand beside Muramasa.

Muramasa frowned, looking at the white boy who greatly resembled his victim. "Why does a shinigami have a hollow within him?"

"He's human. His soul's been through some weird shit," the hollow grinned. Muramasa began getting the feeling that his control over the situation was slipping.

"How did my power call to you, hollow?" Though the hollow's grin got slightly wider, it was the zanpakuto that answered.

"It didn't."

In an instant, both men flanking the rogue zanpakuto were gripping one of his wrists- the hollow the right, and Zangetsu-no-ossan the left. One sword was at his throat, and one was at the back of his neck. Before he knew what was happening, Muramasa was helpless.

"A trap…" he breathed, beginning to panic. He turned his gaze to the shinigami… human?... in front of him, who was standing up and dusting himself off. Turquoise eyes met amber, and the teenager spoke.

"Muramasa. Kuchiki Koga's inner world is an ocean filled with broken columns." The best way to convince people they were from the future was to display knowledge that there was no way they could know otherwise.

There was a long moment of silence before Muramasa spoke again.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Kurosaki Ichigo. You've already met the hollow and Zangetsu-no-ossan. We're from the future." He raised the projector and began rapidly playing images of the last fight with Aizen, ending with the return to the beginning. "The shinigami are at war. I had just killed the man trying to destroy my home, but he had a rock that brought us back in time. Tomorrow, I'm going after him to finish our fight. I've been letting the captains know what they'll be up against in the next few months, and I'm done except for the stuff that you started. Before I told them, I wanted to find you, and show you what would have happened if you'd gone through with your plans."

Muramasa took several deep breaths, digesting Ichigo's words, before calmly saying, "I would appear to be a captive audience, Kurosaki Ichigo."

"Didn't think you'd listen otherwise." He called up the memories of the first fight with Sode no Shirayuki, moving quickly through the images. "You called, and the Zanpakuto left us."

He flashed through the first time he and Muramasa had fought, and his loss of Zangetsu-no-ossan, skipping the blackout caused by the imbalance in his soul and his sword's Getsuga Tensho. His inner instincts had been fighting in that time, he knew. The hollow hadn't really regained consciousness yet, and the creature that had fought Muramasa was the same one that had beaten Ulquiorra, though far weaker.

The fight in his inner world he slowed down to real-time for. The hollow, the hollow he had banished to the depths of his soul in the fight during the Vizard's training, had also woken to Muramasa's call for a short time, and they had worked together. Sort of. It was worth remembering.

/_ "God you piss me off."_/

"Still true," the hollow grinned.

/_ "He may have originally been a hollow, but now he's a part of me. Of course, I'm glad if he just leaves me alone._"/

"Still true," Ichigo frowned back.

/ "_Kurosaki Ichigo… what are you? The way you speak… but I simply can't fathom a relationship between a shinigami and a hollow."_

"_Look, Muramasa, or whatever your name is… You missed one important thing. You've been calling me a shinigami this whole time. I'm _human_!" and he pushed Muramasa out of his soul. /_

The fight with Zangetsu-no-ossan he only showed flashes of, without any dialog, stopping the memory when the black daito rested alone in front of him. The old man's motives for fighting him were none of Muramasa's business.

"To defeat your own sword in bankai with such ease… what are you?" Muramasa murmured.

"You call that _easy_?" Ichigo blinked.

"He did not. At the end, it was two-on-one," There was a clear undertone of pride in Zangetsu-no-ossans's voice. "For the first time, they worked together. I did not stand a chance."

"Don't get soft on us, old man," the hollow sneered.

"I see. A dysfunctional relationship, but you will unite against an outside threat. And did you not feel any distress, Kurosaki Ichigo, at striking at your partner?"

In response, Ichigo called up the first time Muramasa had asked that question, and his answer at the time.

/ "_Zangetsu-no-ossan is a part of me. I knew he would accept me, and my power. Knowing that, how could I turn my back and cower in fear when he wanted to fight me?_"/

Muramasa nodded.

"We knew how to free them from your influence, and Shinigami began hunting down their own swords." He showed swift images of Zabimaru running around the meeting room after Renji had regained them, of Matsumoto and Hinamori confronting Haineko and Tobiume, and of Hitsaguya forcing Hyorinmaru to remember who he was.

"We found out too late that was what you wanted us to do. You needed the confusion in Seireitei to buy yourself time." He showed their second fight, all of it, at normal speed. Muramasa's laughter when he took Ichigo's most powerful strike full-on rang in their ears as he redirected it and added his own power, and the triangular prism protecting the Captain-commander's meditating body shattered, allowing Muramasa access to his memories and Soul Society's most powerful Zanpakuto. He gave Yamamoto's resigned explanation of the backstory and Muramasa's true intentions, and that the entire rebellion had been a front for Muramasa to gain the information and power to free his sealed wielder. Finally, he showed the brutal destruction of the liberated spirits of the Captain's swords when they attacked Muramasa in outrage.

"I still fail to see why you are showing me these images. Do you believe I deserve an explanation of why you are going to kill me?"

Ichigo bowed his head. "You found out how to break the seal surrounding Koga from jii-san's memories, and went to where he was sealed." The triumph in Muramasa's eyes mirrored the expression on his future self's face as the memory showed his shinigami's awakening- and the shock was almost as great when Koga shoved his sword into the image's stomach.

"Koga…"

/_ "That's why I've been working to break the seal for so long… so very long…"_

"_What good is it if you're not there when I need you?" / _

The scene played on, stopping when Kuchiki Byakuya stopped Koga's final blow, and berated him for treating his sword in such a way.

"Kuchiki Byakuya. The head of the family. Kinda stuck-up, but an honorable man and a good brother." There was no higher praise that Ichigo could give. He continued the scene through Senbonzakura's exposition of Byakuya's motives, though he could tell from the expression on his face that Muramasa was not seeing anything but his own image on the ground, not hearing anything but Koga's last harsh words. The fight began.

/ "_Koga… use me. My power is always with you…"_

_The formerly sealed man looked at him. Brought his hand down. Shattered his blade._

"_You'll just get in my way. I don't have to use an unstable sword like you."_

"_Damn you! Don't you understand what a Zanpakuto is?" the orange-haired teen shouted._

"_A Zanpakuto is merely a tool. I can always find a replacement." _/

"YOU'RE LYING!" Muramasa shouted, lunging forward heedless of the dark sword at his throat. Zangetsu-no-ossan barely moved it in time to avoid slitting him open, and as the hollow wrestled Muramasa's sword from his right hand the older man tripped him and held him down.

"It's a lie! We will build a new world! We will fulfill his dreams! YOU JUST WANT TO STOP US!"

The hollow snorted from where he stood by Muramasa's head, the tip of his sword once more at rest at the back of the zanpakuto spirit's neck. "Trust me, his imagination isn't this good."

"The projector can only show true memories," Ichigo's sword confirmed from his position kneeling at Muramasa's side, holding his arms behind his back. Muramasa struggled against them for several minutes to no avail. Finally, he raised his head as much as he could and looked up at Ichigo.

"I don't believe you_."_

Ichigo looked at him, mind racing. He had been afraid of this. The shinigami had developed the technology, and took Mayuri's word for it that the memories could not be faked. The projection stones, though, had come long after Muramasa's time. He had no reason to believe the projected memories, and his loyalty to Koga was almost limitless… _he had no reason to believe the projected memories…_

"Then look at the originals," Ichigo realized. All three spirits stared at him now.

"What?" Zangetsu-no-ossan was the only one who had an idea of where Ichigo's train of thought had gone, and was truly hoping he was wrong.

"He found out how to unseal Koga from jii-san's memories. He doesn't have to believe us. He can look at the memory himself. Let him up."

The hollow shrugged and lifted his sword, backing away. The zanpakuto hesitated for a long moment, but finally released his grip on Muramasa's arms and stood up. In a flash, their captive was on his feet with his sword in his hand, staring at Ichigo in anguish. He knew that the simple fact that the offer had been made meant that the memory was real. Ichigo looked back at him challengingly.

"Find your truth, Muramasa!"

Muramasa took a deep breath, and disappeared.

"That was foolish, Ichigo," Zangetsu-no-ossan said quietly.

Ichigo shrugged, sitting in the meditation position. He had spent three months in this pose, and it was still by far the most natural for Jinzen. "He has no reason to believe us. It's the only way." He closed his eyes and dropped into his inner world.

Muramasa was kneeling on the surface of the skyscraper, head bowed, tears of blood running down his cheeks. He gave no reaction to Ichigo's presence.

They stayed that way for a while. Ichigo looked at the cloudy sky, the distant sidewalks, his reflection in the glass, anything but the grief of a man over the death of a false dream. Finally, Muramasa stirred and turned his head towards Ichigo.

"Why?"

Ichigo walked over to him, and put his hand on Muramasa's shoulder. "He was a mad dog, Muramasa. It's not your fault."

He drew on his willpower and sent them both upwards and outwards, driving the foreign presence out of his soul as he had done once before. He opened his eyes. Muramasa was in the place he had been when he disappeared into Ichigo's soul, still kneeling on the ground, bloody tear-tracks on his face.

"That was not what I asked, Kurosaki Ichigo. You came and trapped me. Destroyed my dream. Flaunted a partnership I will never have. _Why?_"

Ichigo raised his hand again, and called up the memory from roughly where he had left off, at Muramasa's despair and the Menos he had released. His younger self fought them with Rukia while, off to the side, Byakuya and Koga joined in battle. Muramasa drifted towards that end of the clearing, almost desperately watching his master fight until Byakuya's Endscape blocked the projected Ichigo's view and, therefore, any knowledge of what was passing between the two men. He ignored the action behind him, while images of Orihime, Chad, and Ishida joined the fight and his own double's despair grew, until Byakuya's bankai dissolved and the two men reappeared. In the scene, Byakuya staggered slightly, before being caught by Senbonzakura. Koga leaned on his makeshift spear for support.

/_ "I'm not finished yet! Muramasa! Come out!_

"_Muramasa! What's keeping you?_

"_Mura…ma…" as he fell into the frozen lake/_

In the present, the spirit of the zanpakuto fell to his knees again as he heard his master in his final moments call for the sword he had abandoned.

"Hey. Dumbass. You might want to check out what happened to you instead of to the loser," the hollow snapped, pointing behind Muramasa to where his illusory double had turned into a hollow and was confronting Ichigo and his friends. Orihime was trying to talk him into reason, only to fail and be pushed back as Rukia dove to catch her and Ichigo blocked the blow. The two began trading blows as the present Muramasa walked back to the young man projecting the image.

"Is this your answer, Kurosaki Ichigo? I turned into a hollow and attacked your friends? Why do you not condemn me?"

Ichigo visibly flinched, and the images turned briefly into a bat-winged Arrancar before the projection blinked out. "I'm not that hypocritical."

"Get over it."

"Shut up." Ichigo started the projection again, and they watched in silence until the hollow Muramasa fell.

Muramasa's eyes widened as the darkness that was all Ichigo had been able to see overcame them all. "What…"

"The others said that from the outside, this was a big red dome. It began releasing the Menos you had eaten to stay alive, and that attracted other Gillians from Hueco Mundo. Mayuri had figured out how to break your mind control, and we got reinforcements around the dome that killed the hollows and sealed the Garganta. I didn't know that until after, though. I was just falling."

The image landed, and Muramasa recognized an achingly familiar mindscape.

"So that's how you knew…"

They watched as the fight began again, as Ichigo broke out of Muramasa's bindings and used his zanpakuto's eyes to see through the illusions. They heard Zangetsu-no-ossan's voice, which only Ichigo had heard in the original fight, warning him repeatedly to get out of the dome- but still he waited for Muramasa to rise from the ocean.

/ "_You even said you'd killed your master! I bet you knew he didn't even give a damn about you!"/_

Both Muramasas flinched. Ichigo bowed his head.

/ "_And in spite of that, you still fought to release Koga from that seal! All because somewhere deep down, you still truly wanted to communicate with Koga!"_

_Muramasa looked at his hands, which were visibly fading._

"_It was a fleeting dream. It couldn't last forever."_/

A final disembodied warning came- that if Muramasa went fully hollow, the destruction of the dome could destroy Karakura.

/ "_He won't become a hollow." _/

Months later, Ichigo himself couldn't believe the confidence he'd shown at that moment. To risk his home…

/ "_You don't have to go along with everything your shinigami says!"_ /

"The old man's gonna quote you on that one, King. Often and repeatedly."

The image of Muramasa ripped off the half-formed mask on his face and the two opponents flew at each other as the final wave came crashing down. Muramasa fell beneath the waves again, but this time the observers could see him respond to Ichigo's voice, because Ichigo had followed him under.

_/ "Muramasa!" and a hand caught his wrist as he sunk downwards./_

The illusory mindscape dissolved, and the images showed the little isle that Koga had been sealed on once more. Muramasa was on his back, his hand still in Ichigo's.

/ "_Is this what it means for our souls to understand each other?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_I led Koga astray."_

"_We all make mistakes. You just have to accept what happened, and fix what you can."_

_Muramasa's hand tightened._

"_Someday… I will…" _

_His hand fell, and his body dissolved into bits of light and a broken sword. /_

Ichigo ended the projection as the future Orihime and Rukia ran up. He let the silence linger, gathering his thoughts before speaking quietly.

"That's why. You died in my arms, regretting your life. I have a chance to fix it. You can have your someday, if you want it."

"'Someday I will'- what? What did I want, at the end?"

Ichigo shrugged. Zangetsu-no-ossan and the hollow stayed quiet. After a few minutes, Muramasa let out a breath and ended his silent contemplations.

"You have shown me a future that could have been. What now, Kurosaki Ichigo?"

The tension in the small clearing increased. All three cleavers were shifted into a better guard position. Muramasa, surrounded and outnumbered, did not miss the changes in their grips.

"That depends on you. The way I see it, you've got three choices here.

"First choice, you ask us to leave and we go. If you want, you can forget we were ever here. I go back to the Seireitei and give Byakuya the information I just gave you, and let him figure out how to deal with you if you decide to cause problems. I leave for Hueco Mundo tomorrow, and go back to my life after that. I'll be back if the Gotei 13 call for reinforcements like they did the first time, but you probably won't see us again."

Ichigo took a deep breath and steeled himself before continuing.

"Second choice. I open a Garganta to Karakura and we free Koga."

Muramasa's head jerked up, eyes impossibly wide.

"_What?"_

"You heard me. If you still want him to be your shinigami, if you still think you can hear each other and work together, I will help you set him free."

"You don't…" and Muramasa shook his head, "...you arrived after the seal was broken. You don't know how."

"No. But you and I have broken one of jii-san's barriers already, and I've gotten stronger since then. _We've_ gotten stronger since then," he said, looking at his light and dark powers. "If we work together, I think we can take the seal down.

"But, Muramasa, if I let him go, he won't be Byakuya's problem anymore. He'll be mine. Don't do it unless you're sure you can work together, because you'll be facing us right after. If you can't hear each other, you won't stand a chance."

"You showed me your last battle with the man you are at war with. Even if we can work together, Kurosaki Ichigo, would we stand a chance?"

Ichigo didn't answer. His sword did, his voice uncompromising.

"We would not free a mad dog if we were not certain we could put him down."

"Of course, we could be wrong," the hollow smirked. "Do you feel lucky?"

Muramasa looked at Ichigo again. "He called for me, at the end."

"The shinigami are gonna know everything I can tell them about you. This is probably the only chance you're gonna get to take the seal down. If you still want to go to him, we'll respect your wishes."

Muramasa was silent for several minutes. He raised his hands and looked at them. They were solid, not yet fading. "A fleeting dream…" He raised his head and met Ichigo's gaze. "What is the third option?"

Ichigo reached out and felt the spirit ribbons around him, and picked the one that didn't belong to him. He lifted the red ribbon slightly, making it visible to all four of them. It stretched from Muramasa off into the distance.

"The third choice is you admit he's not worth your loyalty, and cut your bonds to him, and move on with your life."

"He is my shinigami."

"Only if you want him to be," Zangetsu-no-ossan rumbled. "Obey your instincts and break your soul free, or tell us to leave, or die with your master. These are your options. Choose."

Ichigo _knew_ he wasn't imagining the satisfaction Muramasa's future target had taken in saying those words.

Muramasa looked at the ribbon connected to his chest contemplatively. "What would I do if I left him? What is a sword without a wielder?"

"Well, you seem to be doing OK by yourself, except for the hollow thing," Ichigo commented, "but if you want we could help you find someone else. Is that possible?" he asked his sword.

"Zanpakuto can take a second wielder," the dark man answered. "It is rare, but possible. Tousen Kaname carries the sword of his dead friend."

"So, there you go! Maybe you could go to the shinigami's school, or to the Rukongai?"

"Any with sufficient spirit pressure will already have a zanpakuto. The man you mention likely unconsciously chose to expel his own zanpakuto in favor of the new one," Muramasa mused. He gave Ichigo a considering look. "Perhaps a human who has never bonded with a zanpakuto spirit."

"Well, you saw that I've got a fair number of friends with high spiritual pressure. Ishida would laugh at me if I asked him to become a shinigami, but Orihime or Chad might be willing. Orihime doesn't like fighting much, though, and Chad prefers using his fists. And they've both got their own powers already." Ichigo looked back at Muramasa, thinking of possibilities.

"Maybe one of the others? Tatsuki's a good martial artist, and she'll be able to see you soon if she can't already." Ichigo sobered, remembering. "And she would have been glad for a way to fight."

"May I see your interactions with your friends?"

Ichigo flashed through glimpses of his friends in Karakura; of fighting Tatsuki in the dojo as a child, meeting Mizuiru and Keigo on the first day of high school, and Chizuru in the classroom groping Orihime, spending only a little time on each memory. He lingered slightly longer on the festival the previous month, then gave the entire argument with Tatsuki after Orihime's kidnapping and finally the confrontation with Aizen, where first Gin and then Ichigo had distracted Aizen's attention from the schoolchildren he was toying with.

"Like I said," Ichigo said quietly, rubbing his cheek in memory, "she would have been glad for a way to fight." The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like the perfect solution. He was tired of lying, tired of trying to hide his actions from his friends. "I'd be happy to introduce you."

"Or, if you want weak-willed and spineless, you could pick Keigo," the hollow smirked. "He'd be glad to rely on your powers."

"Keigo's not that bad. Mizuiro or Chizuru- I'm having trouble seeing it, but, maybe? If you met them, you might get along." Ichigo shrugged, relaxing as it became clear that Muramasa was considering his words rather than denying them or attacking. It was working. He could save him-

"King's got two sisters."

-wait, what?

"Fuck no."

"You cannot protect them forever, Ichigo," his sword murmured, smiling slightly.

"Watch me."

"Their reiatsu will increase as they age, as yours did. They will become targets of wandering hollows, as you were. You cannot be there all the time. Someday you will have to teach them to protect themselves."

"They're way too young."

"How old's old enough, partner?" the hollow asked cheerfully. "Fifteen?"

Ichigo glared at the pale boy, who had relaxed enough to rest the tip of his sword on the ground and lean grinning against a tree. "How 'bout when they're dead. They can be shinigami when they're dead."

"Hypocrite."

"Yuzu already acts a great deal like your mother. When she grows older, she will resemble her physically as well," Zangetsu-no-ossan pointed out, his smile increasing while Muramasa watched the exchange slightly wistfully. "If you do not give her a sword, she will be reduced to beating boys off with sticks."

Ichigo paused, considering that. His mother was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, and Yuzu had her hair color and bone structure…

"Karin's already had her first crush," the hollow announced, his ever-present smile becoming positively feral.

"_What?"_

"The meal in your room, just after you came back from the warehouse. You were being emo and not paying attention."

"I was not," Ichigo muttered, calling up the memory. He now took the time to listen to his sisters' conversation, and to Karin talking glowingly to Yuzu about a soccer game and the boy who had played with her, with white hair and green eyes… "Huh." He considered his options for a minute, rubbing his chin with one hand, and then nodded decisively.

"He dies."

The hollow doubled over laughing, his mission accomplished.

"Perhaps a bit excessive, Ichigo," Zangetsu-no-ossan murmured, stifling his own laughter in a cough. "It is unlikely he reciprocated, or even knew about it. He was probably just bored."

"He'd _fucking better not have_! He's at least ten times her age!" Ichigo took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. "Can I maim him?"

"It has not happened yet, and now probably never will."

"Fine. Still gonna kick his ass."

"Yes!" the hollow cheered. "Dragon-boy's going down!"

Muramasa coughed, bringing Ichigo's attention back to him.

"I think you are forgetting, Kurosaki Ichigo, that I was declared by the Central 46 to be a danger to the peace. It is unlikely that I would be allowed to exist unmolested with a new wielder."

Ichigo gave him a confident smirk. "If they try, we'll protect you. No matter who you choose." He paused, thinking about it, while the hollow groaned. "Unless they start killing random people again. Don't do that."

"Idiot."

Muramasa raised his eyebrows at Ichigo skeptically.

"He means it," Ichigo's zanpakuto confirmed in resignation. "He gives of himself far too easily and far too freely. He will now fight for you against his own allies, and his truest friends will follow in his footsteps and guard you because he has decided you should be guarded." The older man shook his head. "For what it is worth, we have become powerful enough that the Gotei 13 would be unlikely to challenge him for you unless you deliberately drew their attention. He is an ally that they will not wish to antagonize unnecessarily."

"So I saw. And what will you do with that power when the man you are fighting is dead?"

"You saw I'm in high school, right?" Ichigo said in confusion. "What do you think I'll do?"

Muramasa just looked at him, bemused. "Even as fractured as you are now, you are one of the most powerful beings in existence. And you wish to spend your time in the human educational system?"

"School is important! And my attendance next semester was so bad it was hard to keep my grades up. I've got entrance exams in a couple of years, and I need to start getting ready." He looked up at the sky while leaning against a tree. "I can probably give Ishida and Inoue a challenge in the class rankings now, since I'll have done most of the material before. It's gonna be pretty funny seeing Ishida's face when he realizes that. Bastard'll start studying twice as hard just to beat me, though, and he's pretty smart."

Muramasa transferred his gaze from Ichigo to the avatars of his power, still confused, looking for any sign that they were laughing at him. The hollow just shrugged, while the zanpakuto looked back at him expressionlessly. Finally Muramasa gave a slight smile and nodded, closing his eyes. "I have seen what can come of encouraging a powerful shinigami's desire for power. May your lack of ambition serve you better than Koga's ambition did him, Kurosaki Ichigo."

Ichigo's habitual frown deepened. "Graduating high school is an ambition. There've been plenty of times I didn't think I'd live that long."

"Indeed." Muramasa came closer to Ichigo, contemplatively fingering the red ribbon that stretched off into the distance. Finally, he bowed his head and sliced the ribbon, allowing the end to flutter away. He stood in silence for a long moment.

"I'm sorry," Ichigo said quietly. Zangetsu-no-ossan also bowed his head in respect. The hollow ignored the solemn air entirely to say, "Hey. That was dramatic and all, but kinda stupid. Shouldn't you have found another wielder first?"

Muramasa looked up, and smiled.

"I have."

And with a single lunge, his sword was pinning Ichigo to the tree behind him.

Ichigo gasped, his hand coming up to rest on the blade of the sword through his heart as he started to bleed. The world seemed to be moving in slow motion. From two voices came identical, incoherent screams of rage, and opposite swords pierced Muramasa from either side. He made no move to defend himself.

Their eyes met. There was no anger in Muramasa's gaze, and no despair. There was only a plea. For understanding, and for acceptance.

_/'Muramasa!' and a hand caught his wrist as he sunk downwards./_

_/ "Is this what it means for our souls to understand each other?"/_

And, as Ichigo slumped over, unconscious, Muramasa's feet and the hilt of his blade began dissolving.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

**Author's Note:**

So…

**Question of the week: **Who totally saw that coming?

The Muramasa scenes have been written since before I started posting this fic. I ask the question because I've had at least two reviewers suggest I do exactly what I had already planned.

The next chapter will be up in two weeks, hopefully on Saturday and definitely sometime on the weekend. It will contain the watching Shinigami's reaction to the whole scene and the fallout from Muramasa's action.

**The teaser**:

"I've never seen him that angry."

"Yeah, you'd think Muramasa had raped your soul or something."

"_What?"_


	14. Chapter 13 Farcical Tragedies

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

**Spoiler Alert**: As usual, the manga/anime up through the Deicide arc, and the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc for this chapter as much as for the last one.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; in this chapter, it's Ichigo and Zarakai. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

Once again, I totally did not check the date to see if there were any major holidays scheduled for the weekend I was planning on posting. Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it!

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Komamura Saijin was the last of the captains to arrive at the first division monitoring station, having been resolving a mix-up in the patrol schedules of the day when he received Iba's butterfly saying that Kurosaki Ichigo had gotten close enough to the unnamed target's reiatsu signature to begin following it purposefully. He settled next to his lieutenant and accepted a cup of the strange bubbling drink, took a sip, and promptly sneezed and switched to the cup of tea offered to him by Ise Nanao.

"Where is he?" he asked her.

"The Forty-third North District," she answered. "He was searching for the trail his sword found for about an hour before coming close enough to aim at his target."

"So close?" Komamura rumbled, wondering once again what Kurosaki's reason for the mysterious errand was.

"Shh! It's starting!" Matsumoto hissed, while on-screen Ichigo landed next to the figure he had been searching for. The stranger was a pale man roughly of Ichigo's height, with russet-brown hair and incredibly long fingernails. He was clad in a fur-lined robe with a sash at the waist, and his eyes were turquoise and surrounded by purple markings. The markings and the fingernails were only evidence that the man was not human.

Yamamoto frowned, the face and clothing triggering a nagging feeling of familiarity.

/ _"Hey. What's a zanpakuto doing wandering around alone?"_

_The figure's expression changed from startled to alarmed, and a sword materialized in his right hand as he darted forward to attack the new witness._/

"Touchy, isn't he?" Kyoraku murmured.

"Muramasa…" At the single word, Kuchiki Byakuya stiffened slightly and looked over to where the Soutaicho was sitting on a cushion with his eyes now open in startled recognition. "The fool. The little fool."

"Who is he, Captain-commander?" Soi Fon asked him.

"Muramasa is an illusion-type Zanpakuto with tapeworm-like abilities. He has the power to enter his enemy's Zanpakuto and control it. His master Koga was sealed centuries ago when he revolted against Soul Society." Yamamoto shook his head. "Be prepared to move out. His powers can only be negated if the opponent can close off his heart. Kurosaki has overestimated himself."

Unstated but universally understood was the implication that Kurosaki Ichigo would be utterly incapable of locking his emotions away from the influences of the world. At his grim words the roomful of the most powerful shinigami in Soul Society began checking their swords and preparing their souls for battle. On the screen, Ichigo landed silently in midair and darted forward, sword raised, only to halt suddenly and fall to the ground.

"That's torn it. Ukitake-taicho, Kyoraku-taicho. You're with me. The rest of the forces-"

"Soutaicho." The single word cut through the Captain-commander's flow of orders. As the rest of the room turned to Kuchiki Byakuya in shock, Yamamoto opened his eyes to give him a considering glance, then nodded shortly.

"Very well. Leave your vice-captain in command and-"

"Stop! Please!" Orihime almost shouted. Yamamoto stifled his irritation at being interrupted for the second time in as many minutes while she continued speaking. "Kurosaki-kun knows what he's doing!"

"Kinda looks he's all tied up at the moment, though," Ichimaru Gin remarked cheerfully. On the screen, the man they now knew to call Muramasa had landed next to Ichigo and begun chanting.

"Kurosaki's too calm," Ishida pointed out. Like Orihime, he had pushed himself to a standing position, facing Yamamoto. "If he had not expected this he would still be fighting."

Yamamoto turned back to look at the expression on Ichigo's face. He could not deny that Ichigo was taking his captivity well, but shook his head as Muramasa reached one hand inside of Ichigo's chest.

/_ "Come! Your name is Zangetsu!"_/

The two avatars of Ichigo's power manifested on the front wall of the room as Yamamoto answered, "If he has lost his Zanpakuto it is safe to say he has lost control of the situation."

"They're spying! Zangetsu-san said they couldn't be controlled!"

At the girl's words, Yamamoto turned towards his lieutenant, who had had the monitoring duty in this same room the previous evening. As Sasakibe nodded in confirmation, Muramasa frowned at the hollow on his right side.

/_"Why does a shinigami have a hollow within him?"_

_"He's human. His soul's been through some weird shit."_

_"How did my power call to you, hollow?" _

_It was the sword to Muramasa's left that answered, dry satisfaction in his voice. "It didn't."_/

Several of the observers began applauding as the trap was sprung and Muramasa was rendered helpless in an instant. Yamamoto took a deep breath, shoved old memories of another powerful young shinigami back into the past where they belonged, and settled back onto his cushion to watch the show.

/_"Muramasa. Kuchiki Koga's inner world is an ocean filled with broken columns."_/

That took a minute to sink in before Kuchiki Byakuya became the focus of the room once again. He inclined his head a minute fraction in acknowledgement. "Kurosaki should not have interfered. This is a matter for the Kuchiki family."

Onscreen, though, Ichigo was still speaking.

_/I've been letting the captains know what they'll be up against in the next few months, and I'm done except for the stuff that you started. Before I told them, I wanted to find you, and show you what would have happened if you'd gone through with your plans."_/

"It seems he does not intend to keep his actions today secret, at least," Ukitake said tactfully to the captain of the Sixth.

"He told us he would tell us about what happened tonight," Orihime mentioned as Ichigo began to tell Muramasa about the future of the path he was on. Rukia watched flashes of herself and Ichigo battling a beautiful snow-white woman and let her hand rest on the comforting weight of Sode no Shirayuki at her side, grateful to be able to sense her once again after the silence of the past months.

They watched with Muramasa as Ichigo showed the first time he lost Zangetsu and the fight that ensued, and then the move to the city of Ichigo's mind.

"… he's a weird kid."

Ishida felt that was a bit hypocritical coming from Ichimaru Gin, but asked the room in general, "Sideways is not the typical orientation, then?"

He was answered by general headshakes. Onscreen, Ichigo's memory was slammed to the ground by invisible cords once again as Muramasa focused on calling the hollow from the depths of Ichigo's soul, and the battle was joined. It continued until Muramasa lost interest and bound the hollow to the sideways skyscraper with the same technique that held Ichigo's projected form captive. They watched as Ichigo saw the reflection of the bonds in the windows of the skyscraper above their heads, and the projection sent out a scythe of energy to break the bonds and free his pale double.

_/ "__Kurosaki Ichigo… what are you? The way you speak… but I simply can't fathom a relationship between a shinigami and a hollow."_

_"__Look, Muramasa, or whatever your name is… You missed one important thing. You've been calling me a shinigami this whole time. I'm _human!"_/_

Ishida nodded in slight satisfaction at the declaration as the projection pressed forward, still glowing, and the surroundings of the four figures onscreen shifted back to the Seireitei.

"His invasion can be resisted with just willpower," Soi Fon noted, already mapping out an attack plan.

Komamura shook his head. "Given enough time, but it does not seem to take him very long to mentally control a zanpakuto."

On the wall in front of them, the spirit of Ichigo's sword expressionlessly watched his wielder's final attack against his past self, and then the image shifted to the black daito resting alone in front of him.

"What would have happened if he'd killed Zangetsu?" Renji wondered out loud.

There was a slightly sickened silence as the shinigami pondered that while the current Muramasa questioned Ichigo's resolve in the fight with his sword, and then Hitsugaya stirred and said, "Broken Zanpakuto fix themselves eventually, and a manifested spirit is healed when it returns to the shinigami's soul. Most of us were accounted for in Kurosaki's memories of the final battle. There did not seem to be any lasting effects from this incident."

"We hope," Ise Nanao murmured.

"Ichigo would have told us if there had been." Despite the confident words, Rukia's voice was uncertain, but it became firmer as she finished her thought. "He told me about Homura and Shizuku before the meeting because I was at the center of the event. This is the same."

"It is not his decision to make." Her brother's voice was calm and colder than the sword at her side. "The shinigami who wields that sword is no concern of his. He has a fondness for trampling on the pride of others."

Rukia closed her eyes in resignation, realizing that Ichigo was in the process of destroying whatever tolerance the two men had built up between them in their battle and the weeks since. She hoped whatever Ichigo was doing was worth it.

/_"We knew how to free them from your influence, and Shinigami began hunting down their own swords."_/

Renji watched in confusion as the scene shifted to a meeting room with Ichigo, Ukitake, Kyoraku, and Renji, along with a woman about his age with green fur covering most of her body and a pre-teen of indeterminate gender engulfed in baggy white clothing. "Why're they human? And girls?"

"Is that not the form of the spirit of your zanpakuto, Abarai-fukataicho?" Unohana asked him.

Renji shook his head. "Male baboon with a snake for a tail."

"Haineko's a large grey cat," Matsumoto contributed as the surroundings changed again. Hinamori Momo and her future self had joined Ichigo's projected image, facing a redheaded teenager with pink fur covering her tail, breasts and hips. Seeing her companion, a completely humanoid girl wearing a white robe and a gravity-defying sash framing her head, she added, "I don't know what Tobiume looks like."

"Momo was recovered by then, at least." The captain of the Tenth watched as the images shifted to himself in an ice-covered field, facing a tall man with green hair and white markings on his face. "Hyorinmaru is a dragon made of ice."

"Sode no Shirayuki was as I know her, though," Rukia mentioned.

"The half-shinigami's sword was also the same." Mayuri narrowed his eyes in speculation. "It may be a function of the mind control, or the process of manifestation. There is little apparent consistency."

/_"We found out too late that was what you wanted us to do. You needed the confusion in Seireitei to buy yourself time."_/

They watched silently as Muramasa used Ichigo's strongest technique to help him break the barrier surrounding the Captain-commander.

"He wouldn't have been able to keep you trapped, would he, Yama-jii." Kyoraku did not make it a question.

"No," was the grim reply. In front of them, his future self stood up.

_/ "We have lost this round."_/

As the future Muramasa confirmed that the entire rebellion had been a front for his own plans, the dual spirits of Katen Kyokotsu and Sogyo no Kotowari attacked the puppetmaster in outrage. Their current wielders gave strangled gasps as the flames of Ryujin Jakka instantly destroyed them, and their hands fell to the comforting weight of the swords still at their side.

"Even _that_ sword," Omaeda Marechiyo said, sweating in fear.

Ukitake swallowed, still pale. "Kyoraku used his shikai against Aizen in the final battle. We can at least confirm that destroying the spirit's body will not permanently harm them."

/_"I still fail to see why you are showing me these images. Do you believe I deserve an explanation of why you are going to kill me?"_/

"Finally, he asks," Ikkaku muttered. The watchers had been wondering the same thing since Muramasa had begun controlling Ichigo's zanpakuto.

/_"You found out how to break the seal surrounding Koga from jii-san's memories, and went to where he was sealed." _/

"Oh, come on! Answer him!" the bald man yelled at the screen, before being shut up by Yumichika's elbow to the ribs. The future Muramasa was approaching his awakening wielder triumphantly. Kuchiki Koga turned out to be a pale and wrinkled, but still quite muscular black-haired man wearing a leather half-mask, a vest, and a bone necklace.

/ "_Mura…masa."_

_The sword in his hand thrust through his zanpakuto's stomach._/

Half the room surged to their feet, yelling in disbelief and outrage. Even Zarakai, whose relationship with his sword was only minutely better than the one Koga evidently had with Muramasa, snarled in disgust at the ungrateful action. Orihime whispered, eyes wide, "He was murdered by someone he loved… oh, no."

/ "_Koga…"_

"_You didn't come, even though I called for you when I was about to get sealed away_! _You refused to lend me your power!_"

"_You were calling for me? I never heard you, I swear!"_/

Yamamoto nodded slightly at the confirmation of what had gone wrong for Kuchkik Ginrei's son-in-law the evening they sealed him away.

/ _"You're just a tool! Don't be so cocky, tool!"_

_The final blow was intercepted by the captain of the Sixth. "I can't believe you called your own sword a tool and attacked it. You don't deserve to be called a shinigami."_/

Byakuya nodded slightly in satisfaction as Ichigo paused the projection to introduce the newcomer.

/_"Kuchiki Byakuya. The head of the family. Kinda stuck-up, but an honorable man and a good brother." _/

Rukia brought her hand to her mouth to hide her smile while Byakuya blinked at the apparent respect. '_Then what is he trying to do?'_

The watching shinigami listened to the masked, armored spirit that was evidently Senbonzakura as he gave an explanation for a series of actions that seemed to have been seen as a betrayal by the Seireitei. As the future fight was joined, Muramasa intervened in one last attempt to call out to his wielder, and was shattered for his efforts, accompanied by the groans of the more sympathetic members of the audience.

/ _"__A Zanpakuto is merely a tool. I can always find a replacement." _

"_YOU'RE LYING!_"/

"And here it comes. Surprised it took him this long." Yoruichi grabbed another bowl of popcorn from the main bowl while the spirits of Ichigo's power wrestled Muramasa to the ground, and promptly choked on it when she heard Ichigo's response to the denial.

/_"He found out how to unseal Koga from jii-san's memories. He doesn't have to believe us. He can look at the memory himself. Let him up."_/

"Has he lost his _mind_?" Hisagi asked out loud, gaping at the screen as Ichigo freed a dangerous, emotionally unstable weapon and gave him permission to invade his inner world. His opinion was echoed by the human's own zanpakuto as his wielder settled into the pose for Jinzen.

"It was the logical decision." Korutsuchi Nemu's quiet voice unexpectedly spoke out in Ichigo's defense. "As he said, the zanpakuto has no reason to believe him, and Ichigo has proven he is able to drive him from his mindscape."

"Ichigo?" Nanao looked at the other woman with slightly raised eyebrows at the familiar name, and the vice-captain of the Twelfth glanced away, cheeks slightly pink.

"There was nothing of logic in that decision," Soifon rebutted curtly. "Kurosaki is ruled by his emotions. He feels sorry for Muramasa, and because of that he is ignoring his crimes and aiding the enemy."

"What crimes are ya talking about?" Ichimaru Gin asked her mockingly. The question had come up repeatedly in various discussions of his recent trial. "You might wanna wait for him to do something first."

"Shouldn't they have come right back out?" Kira interjected before the barbs could escalate. "It did not take him long to retrieve the memory of how to free his master."

They glanced back at the screen. Ichigo showed no response to the outside world, and Muramasa was still absent.

"His sword is not concerned, though." Kotetsu Isane pointed to the side walls. The hollow was sitting casually on a stump, and Zangetsu-no-ossan was standing on one of the lower branches of a tree on the other side of the clearing.

When there was no action after another minute or so, the observers began to treat it as an intermission, leaving for the toilet facilities and refilling drinks and bowls. Yachiru, who had drunk almost a full bottle of coke by herself, was running around hyped up on sugar and caffeine until Ikkaku hauled her outside to play until the entertainment began again.

Finally, Ichigo stirred and opened his eyes, and the shinigami settled back onto their cushions. Muramasa was kneeling in front of him, with dried tear tracks of blood on his face. His deep voice sounded shattered as he continued a conversation evidently started in the inner world.

/_"That was not what I asked, Kurosaki Ichigo. You came and trapped me. Destroyed my dream. Flaunted a partnership I will never have. _Why_?__"_/

"No, seriously, answer him," Renji called at the screens as Ichigo began the memory without speaking once more. The scene began a short time after the memory that Muramasa had interrupted; Byakuya was fighting with Koga in the distance while Ichigo and Rukia began decimating a group of Menos that Muramasa had somehow summoned.

The captain of the Sixth watched in satisfaction while his future self fulfilled his duty as the head of the Kuchiki clan. Onscreen, the true Muramasa fell to his knees as his master called out to him as his body fell into the kido-frozen lake, before his attention was brought back to the transformation his despair had caused.

/_"Is this your answer, Kurosaki Ichigo? I turned into a hollow and attacked your friends? Why do you not condemn me?"_

_Ichigo visibly flinched, and the images turned briefly into a bat-winged Arrancar before the projection blinked out. "I'm not that hypocritical."_/

Ishida stiffened and turned to Ukitake, who had originally given Ichigo the kido projector. "How long have you been monitoring him?"

The captain of the Thirteenth turned away, slightly shamefaced. "That particular record has been sealed. Yamamoto-soutaicho has the only copy in Soul Society, and will not distribute it."

"Despite my requests." Mayuri looked at Ishida speculatively, putting the together the hints they had gotten from the first conversation, the Espada lecture, and the reaction Ichigo had just had from Muramasa's words. "So, he was injured, lost his mind, turned into a hollow, and attacked… you? Or was it the girl, or one of the others who went to Hueco Mundo with him?"

"It has not yet happened, and will not happen again." Yamamoto turned from the fight to give the clown-faced captain a quelling look. "The details are irrelevant."

Orihime, however, had caught something Ishida had missed. "How many copies are there outside of Soul Society?"

Yoruichi answered slightly regretfully. "All of the recordings are shared with Kisuke and Shinji's group."

Including, doubtless, his father and possibly his sisters. Ishida shook his head disbelievingly as Chad and his own image began shooting at the dozens of minor hollows that had appeared in the area, evidently from Muramasa, until Ichigo wounded him badly enough that the hollowified Muramasa lost control completely and released a flood of black reiatsu that enveloped Ichigo's image.

/_"The others said that from the outside, this was a big red dome. It began releasing the Menos you had eaten to stay alive, and that attracted other Gillians from Hueco Mundo. Mayuri had figured out how to break your mind control, and we got reinforcements around the dome that killed the hollows and sealed the Garganta. I didn't know that until after, though. I was just falling."_/

Mayuri preened slightly. "I will begin research immediately."

"Feeding on hollows to survive," Kyoraku murmured. "It explains how he was able to live away from Koga, at least."

They watched the fight in the mindscape that Ichigo had described earlier, as the world began crumbling and Muramasa's despair grew, until he finally went under the water for the final time, and Ichigo followed him under and caught his wrist as the dome was disintegrated and the small island appeared once more.

_/ "__Is this what it means for our souls to understand each other?"_

_"__Yeah."_

_"__I led Koga astray."_

_"__We all make mistakes. You just have to accept what happened, and fix what you can."_

_Muramasa's hand tightened._

_"__Someday… I will…" _

_His hand fell, and his body dissolved into bits of light and a broken sword. /_

Back in the monitoring room, Orihime, Isane, and Matsumoto had openly teared up, and it was silent until Ichimaru Gin broke the moment.

"Intrigue, action, and a tragic ending. I give it four sta-" and he cut himself off with a hiss when his girlfriend kicked his shins.

/_"That's why. You died in my arms, regretting your life. I have a chance to fix it. You can have your someday, if you want it."_

_"'Someday I will'- what? What did I want, at the end?"_

_Ichigo shrugged. Zangetsu-no-ossan and the hollow stayed quiet. After a few minutes, Muramasa let out a breath and ended his silent contemplations._

_"You have shown me a future that could have been. What now, Kurosaki Ichigo?"_/

"That is the question. We cannot just let him go free," Unohana said regretfully, but it quickly became evident that Kurosaki had come prepared for the question as three projected figures readied themselves for possible combat.

/_"That depends on you. The way I see it, you've got three choices here._

_"First choice, you ask us to leave and we go. If you want, you can forget we were ever here. I go back to the Seireitei and give Byakuya the information I just gave you, and let him figure out how to deal with you if you decide to cause problems. I leave for Hueco Mundo tomorrow, and go back to my life after that. I'll be back if the Gotei 13 call for reinforcements like they did the first time, but you probably won't see us again."_/

"He seems to have-" Rukia began murmuring to her brother, before Ichigo continued and she cut herself off.

/_"Second choice. I open a Garganta to Karakura and we free Koga."_/

Muramasa's shocked exclamation was a mere second before that of the shinigami's.

/_"You heard me. If you still want him to be your shinigami, if you still think you can hear each other and work together, I will help you set him free."_/

The room was suddenly stifling from the surge of reiatsu from both Kuchiki Byakuya and Yamamoto Genryusai. Kotetsu Isane was among the many lieutenants who began sweating, and for the first time she realized that the meetings of the captains of Soul Society were generally held in an enormous room with high ceilings out of necessity rather than ostentation.

"He… _dares_…" Byakuya's hand was gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly his knuckles were white.

"Ichigo knows what he's doing." Rukia prayed she was correct.

/_"You don't…" and Muramasa shook his head, "...you arrived after the seal was broken. You don't know how."_

_"No. But you and I have broken one of jii-san's barriers already, and I've gotten stronger since then. __We've__ gotten stronger since then," he said, looking at his light and dark powers. "If we work together, I think we can take the seal down."_/

"Could he, Yama-jii?" Kyoraku Shunsui asked his old teacher, but the reply was superseded as Ichigo continued.

/_"But, Muramasa, if I let him go, he won't be Byakuya's problem anymore. He'll be mine. Don't do it unless you're sure you can work together, because you'll be facing us right after. If you can't hear each other, you won't stand a chance."_/

The dark cloud that hovered within the room began receding as the two captains most affected by Ichigo's offer processed the fact that he was not, in fact, intending to release a powerful, conscienceless mass murderer into the world.

"He seems to be dividing the duty along the lines you originally followed, Nii-sama." Rukia glanced over at her brother, still intent on damage control. "Koga is yours to deal with, and Muramasa is his, unless Ichigo is responsible for Koga's release or Muramasa refuses Ichigo's aid. No insult is intended."

Byakuya took a breath, and then inclined his head slightly as he released his grip on Senbonzakura.

/_"You showed me your last battle with the man you are at war with. Even if we can work together, Kurosaki Ichigo, would we stand a chance?"_

_Ichigo didn't answer. His sword did, his voice uncompromising._

_"We would not free a mad dog if we were not certain we could put him down."_

_"Of course, we could be wrong," the hollow smirked. "Do you feel lucky?"_/

It was clear to everyone which of the two choices the manifestation of Ichigo's fighting instinct would prefer. Yoruichi looked at Yamamoto, who was still fulminating on his cushion, and said thoughtfully, "He's been training to beat illusions, and he's gotten more powerful since he beat Muramasa the first time. It might be the best solution, even if Koga can use his sword."

/_ "He called for me, at the end."_

_"The shinigami are gonna know everything I can tell them about you. This is probably the only chance you're gonna get to take the seal down. If you still want to go to him, we'll respect your wishes."_

_Muramasa was silent for several minutes. He raised his hands and looked at them. They were solid, not yet fading. "A fleeting dream…" He raised his head and met Ichigo's gaze. "What is the third option?"_/

"He's done it," Orihime whispered, a smile growing, while Ichigo reached out and made an odd gesture, a sort of slight pulling motion.

"What is he doing?" Renji asked with a frown.

/_"The third choice is you admit he's not worth your loyalty, and cut your bonds to him, and move on with your life."_/

"Spirit ribbons!" Ise Nanao realized suddenly. She got a few inquiring glances as the discussion continued, and she elaborated. "His power is to eliminate the bond between shinigami and zanpakuto. He can cut his bond to Koga."

/_"What would I do if I left him? What is a sword without a wielder?"_

_"Well, you seem to be doing OK by yourself, except for the hollow thing," Ichigo commented, "but if you want we could help you find someone else. Is that possible?" he asked his sword._

_"Zanpakuto can take a second wielder," the dark man answered. "It is rare, but possible. Tousen Kaname carries the sword of his dead friend."_/

"One of him is enough." Gin's comment was, for possibly the first time in his life, universally agreed with.

/_"So, there you go! Maybe you could go to the shinigami's school, or to the Rukongai?"_

_"Any with sufficient spirit pressure will already have a zanpakuto. The man you mention likely unconsciously chose to expel his own zanpakuto in favor of the new one," Muramasa mused. He gave Ichigo a considering look. "Perhaps a human who has never bonded with a zanpakuto spirit."_

_"Well, you saw that I've got a fair number of friends with high spiritual pressure. Ishida would laugh at me if I asked him to become a shinigami-"_/

"Yes, I would."

/_"-but Orihime or Chad might be willing. Orihime doesn't like fighting much, though, and Chad prefers using his fists. And they've both got their own powers already." Ichigo looked back at Muramasa, thinking of possibilities._

_"Maybe one of the others? Tatsuki's a good martial artist, and she'll be able to see you soon if she can't already." Ichigo sobered. "And she would have been glad for a way to fight."_

_"May I see your interactions with your friends?"_/

Ishida frowned as Ichigo began calling up a few representative memories. There was something odd about the wording there… His attention was drawn back to Tatsuki's image, which had just grabbed the much taller boy's beige school uniform.

/ _"Don't mess with me! I've always been able to sense her, but now I can't! I can't feel her anywhere nearby! A while ago it felt like she went far away, and I couldn't sense her very well. But yesterday, even that tiny sense of her presence vanished! You know something, don't you? Ichigo!"_

"_You're bothering me. I said I don't know!"_

"_You think I don't know anything. I've seen you. I've seen you in that black kimono running around and fighting with those weird guys._"/

"Those are the ones that were awake in the final battle, aren't they?" Isane asked Orihime, who was sitting next to her.

"Tatsuki-chan, Kojima-kun, Asano-kun." She pointed to each of them as she spoke with a soft smile on her face. "Tatsuki-chan is… a very good friend."

/ "_Ichigo, enough already. Quit keeping secrets and tell me everything."_

"_This doesn't concern you."_

_The punch sent his head through the window."_/

"He had that coming," Ishida muttered. Behind him, Kenpachi Zarakai began paying more than cursory attention to a part of the projection other than the fight scenes for the first time that day.

"That can't have hurt him, right?" Kira asked.

"Kurosaki was in his human body," Soi fon replied, smirking slightly, "and it was a well-thrown punch."

/ "_What am I? What am I to you, Ichigo? Aren't we friends? Aren't we nakama? I've seen you in trouble countless times! I helped you out! You shouldn't be… shouldn't be… hiding anything… from me… jerk." Her words had become broken up by her tears._

"_Ichigo…" the black-haired teen started._

_Ichigo stood. "…sorry. Keigo, Mizuiro. Take care of Tatsuki. And," as he walked away, "don't get involved with me anymore."_/

As the image changed to the scenes before the final fight with Aizen, which they were already familiar with, Zarakai called out, "Hey, she'll be a shinigami when she dies, right?"

"It is likely, since she is able to see spirits already, and seems to have been training alongside Kurosaki to fight since her childhood," Ukitake answered.

"She came in second in the girl's national karate championships this summer, Kenpachi-san," Orihime contributed in support of her friend.

"Huh." The single exposed eye narrowed. "…dibs."

Ukitake inhaled a piece of popcorn. When he had finished coughing, he replied, "Humans are living longer these days. It will be quite a few decades. It is far too early to be assigning her division."

"And Muramasa is a kido-type zanpakuto, Captain," Yumichika interjected. "If they are compatible, she would not be welcome in the Eleventh."

"What the fuck does that matter? She's strong enough."

"It has been an unwritten rule since…" Yumichika blinked. Since long before he had joined the Eleventh Division and decided to hide the full powers of his zanpakuto, which had been before Zarakai defeated the previous Kenpachi.

" 'S not a rule I made. She knew what he is, and punched him out anyway. She's ours."

… how unbeautiful. He would have to think about this.

"The Eleventh would be a poor fit for many other reasons," Soi Fon said. Letting the girl go to those barbarians would be a complete waste. "She specializes in Hakuda, not Zanjutsu."

"She would not appear to be the subtle type, though," Hitsugaya interjected, before the images on the screen returned to the clearing that the human and three spirits occupied.

/_"Like I said, she would have been glad for a way to fight. I'd be happy to introduce you."_

_"Or, if you want weak-willed and spineless, you could pick Keigo," the hollow smirked. "He'd be glad to rely on your powers."_

_"Keigo's not that bad." It was half-hearted at best. "Mizuiro or Chizuru- I'm having trouble seeing it, but, maybe? If you met them, you might get along." _

_"King's got two sisters."_

_A pause, then,_

_"Fuck no."_/

The captain of the Tenth watched the following exchange absently, until the hollow mentioned a conversation that Kurosaki had overheard without registering it at the time. The dark-haired girl was hardly gushing about anyone, just describing a soccer game that some boy had helped her win, in an apparent effort to cheer up her worried sister; he wouldn't have said that she had a crush if the hollow hadn't already used the word…

… he suddenly registered the looks he was getting from the rest of the room, and replayed the physical description in his mind, and considered the timeframe when he would have been in Karakura, and thought about how likely it was that there would be two boys with white hair and green eyes in the same small area of _Japan_…

His blood went as cold as Hyorinmaru's blade.

"How reasonable is he about his sisters?" Nanao asked Rukia absently, as the memory finished and Ichigo began considering the conversation he had just listened to.

"… he stabbed a sword into his heart because he wanted to protect them."

"He seems to do that pretty often, actually, and they_ are_ friends-" Yoruichi remarked, just before Ichigo gave a sharp nod.

/ "_He dies."_'/

"_WHAT?"_ was Toshiro's startled exclamation, while half the room collapsed in laughter. They matched the pose of Ichigo's pale doppelganger, who Toshiro instantly decided had set him up. He _really_ didn't like the thing. His attention was drawn away from his convulsing lieutenant by the amused cough of Ichigo's zanakuto.

/_"Perhaps a bit excessive, Ichigo. It is unlikely he reciprocated, or even knew about it. He was probably just bored."_

_"He'd _fucking better not have_! He's at least ten times her age!_"/

"He wants to kill me because I'm too _old?_" There was just something cosmically unfair about that.

"A little unreasonable of him, given his parentage. There would be a significant age difference in any human-shinigami relationship," Kyoraku remarked, hiding the smile on his face with the shadow of his hat. "He seems to be calming down."

/_"Can I maim him?"_/

Somehow, Toshiro was less than comforted.

/_"It has not happened yet, and now probably never will."_

_"Fine. Still gonna kick his ass."_

_"Yes!" the hollow cheered. "Dragon-boy's going down!"_/

He found himself suddenly enveloped by two familiar mounds of flesh. "Aww, Taicho's gonna be a heartbreaker!" Matsumoto cooed. "I'm sure he'll be fine with your relationship when he's had some time to get used to it!"

His voice was slightly muffled, but still quite audible. "I'VE NEVER MET THE GIRL!"

The mood began to settle when Muramasa drew his companion's attention back to the reason they were there.

/_"I think you are forgetting, Kurosaki Ichigo, that I was declared by the Central 46 to be a danger to the peace. It is unlikely that I would be allowed to exist unmolested with a new wielder."_

_Ichigo gave him a confident smirk. "If they try, we'll protect you. No matter who you choose." _

_The hollow groaned in disgust before Ichigo qualified the promise._

_"Unless they start killing random people again. Don't do that."_

_"Idiot."_/

"…shit." It was in the minds of most of the room; no-one knew who had actually voiced the word. Yamamoto sighed, as one of the least desirable scenarios for Ichigo's involvement in Soul Society's affairs began drawing closer.

/_Muramasa raised his eyebrows at Ichigo skeptically._

_"He means it," Ichigo's zanpakuto confirmed in resignation. "He gives of himself far too easily and far too freely. He will now fight for you against his own allies, and his truest friends will follow in his footsteps and guard you because he has decided you should be guarded." The older man shook his head. "For what it is worth, we have become powerful enough that the Gotei 13 would be unlikely to challenge him for you unless you deliberately drew their attention. He is an ally that they will not wish to antagonize unnecessarily."_/

"Kon…" Soi Fon hissed, realizing exactly what had given the sword that knowledge. This was what came of making exceptions in the rules. How fortunate that their attention had _already _been drawn to Muramasa...

Isane glanced over at the humans at her side. Through both her involvement in Ichigo's healing sessions and the proximity of their living quarters, she had seen more of them than almost any shinigami other than Rukia, and was the most comfortable asking them the question. "Is that true?"

"If Kurosaki-kun needs me I will be there, with or without my abilities." Her response was somehow simultaneously serene and earnest.

Ishida sniffed, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "I hardly count as one of his truest friends."

"So if the Central Forty-six tells us to take the zanpakuto out you'll let Kurosaki fight alone?" Gin's voice was a shade more mocking than usual. Ishida ignored him entirely, focusing instead on the question Muramasa had just asked.

/_"So I saw. And what will you do with that power when the man you are fighting is dead?"_/

_"You saw I'm in high school, right?" Ichigo said in confusion. "What do you think I'll do?"_/

"Not interested in political power indeed," Unohana murmured. The Soutaicho, in her opinion, would find the greatest obstacle of his plan to be the desires of the boy himself.

Ishida suddenly realized what had bothered him about the earlier exchange. "His questions are only focusing on Kurosaki..." Was it possible…?

_/ Muramasa just looked at him, bemused. "Even as fractured as you are now, you are one of the most powerful beings in existence. And you wish to spend your time in the human educational system?"_

_"School is important! And my attendance next semester was so bad it was hard to keep my grades up. I've got entrance exams in a couple of years, and I need to start getting ready." He looked up at the sky while leaning against a tree. "I can probably give Ishida and Inoue a challenge in the class rankings now, since I'll have done most of the material before. It's gonna be pretty funny seeing Ishida's face when he realizes that. Bastard'll start studying twice as hard just to beat me, though, and he's pretty smart."_/

Ishida gaped at the screen, distracted from his musings. "You're damn right I will! _That's not fair_!"

"He's right. That's a funny face." Gin decided to show the boy the memory on his own projector before he left for Hueco Mundo the next day.

/_ Muramasa transferred his gaze from Ichigo to the avatars of his power, still confused, looking for any sign that they were laughing at him. The hollow just shrugged, while the zanpakuto looked back at him expressionlessly. Finally Muramasa gave a slight smile and nodded, closing his eyes._

_"I have seen what can come of encouraging a powerful shinigami's desire for power. May your lack of ambition serve you better than Koga's ambition did him, Kurosaki Ichigo."_/

Kurosaki was chronically blind when it came to anyone else's interest in him. Moron. "Is it possible to bind with two zanpakuto?"

Kyoraku, one of the only two wielders of dual swords in Soul Society, blinked in surprise and shook his head at Ishida's question . "No. No shinigami can bind to more than one. Even for Jushiro and I, there's only one spirit. They just like being in two bodies."

/_Ichigo's habitual frown deepened. "Graduating high school is an ambition. There've been plenty of times I didn't think I'd live that long."_/

As Ishida relaxed, though, Yoruichi remembered a conversation with Isshin, and the origins of Zangetsu, and the fact that, technically, Ichigo had never had a zanpakuto in his soul before Sode no Shirayuki pierced his heart…

She got a sickened feeling in her stomach as Muramasa approached Ichigo, holding an unseen ribbon on the hilt of his sword. He bowed his head, and made a slicing motion.

"He did it!" Izuru shouted, as around him the shinigami began applauding at the successful conclusion of Ichigo's mission.

… would any zanpakuto wish to be completely unsustained by a bond with a shinigami? Yoruichi shoved herself to her feet, a useless cry of warning on her lips, as the hollow pointed out the flaw in Muramasa's action.

/_"Hey. That was dramatic and all, but kinda stupid. Shouldn't you have found another wielder first?"_

_Muramasa looked up, and smiled._

_"I have."_/

The celebration turned into shouts of disbelief and horror, as Ichigo was taken completely off-guard by the unprovoked attack, and Muramasa's sword pierced through his heart.

"Kurosaki-kun!"

"Ichigo!"

The rouge zanpakuto was pierced by the swords of Ichigo's power, and made no move to escape or fight back. Failure to transfer the power would kill them both, and it had been an all-or-nothing move-

-and, as Ichigo slumped over, Muramasa began dissolving from the feet up, and it became clear that the gamble had succeeded.

"Did he just-" Kyoraku couldn't even finish the sentence, and just stared at the screen.

/ "_That… that…" It was the first time any part of Ichigo had seen the older man at a loss for words. His teeth were bared in a snarl as his sword dropped out of the now mostly-incorporeal body._

_Muramasa's power was not, however, all originally his._

_As he disappeared, streams of black light emerged from the place they had been standing, and formed into the original owners of the power that had sustained Muramasa over the centuries._

_Dozens of enormous Gillians began moving aimlessly around as Ichigo, the greatest source of reiatsu in the area, became the focus of a much smaller number of Adjudas._

"_Well… shit." The hollow's sword reshaped itself into a white daito, and a mask appeared on his face as his coat shifted and hair grew. The infuriated older man changed to an infuriated younger one in agreement. As an afterthought, the hollow added, "Bankai."_/

"Move out, and be prepared to fight instantly upon arrival." That was all the instruction Yamamoto gave before he flash-stepped out of the room. All of the observers save the powerless Rukia, Ishida, and Orihime followed in the next instant.

Rukia closed her eyes, still shocked. "He… didn't know what he was doing after all, did he."

"You mean, when he took an emotionally vulnerable…" he paused, searching for a word, "…being, and offered to work with him, told him he would protect him, and showed that he would not go insane with power like his former wielder did?" Ishida shook his head in disbelief. "No, he didn't have a clue."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo groaned, coming back to consciousness abruptly to someone roughly shaking him. He blearily opened his eyes to see Tensa Zangetsu, the black-haired bankai form of his zanpakuto spirit. The young man looked even angrier than he had been the first time Ichigo had seen him, when he had informed Ichigo that his despair had drowned his inner world. He gripped Ichigo's bankai coat (when had he gone into bankai? And if he hadn't, which of his powers had done so, and why?) and dragged him up to a nearly standing position so that they were face-to-face.

"_Bring. Him. Out,"_ the brunette hissed, cutting each word off as though it was being strangled at the source.

"Whaa…?"

"MURAMASA! BRING HIM OUT!"

It was all coming back now, and, still slightly dazed, Ichigo reached deep within his soul, and found, and _pulled_ as he had become so used to doing within the past two weeks. It was harder for some reason, much harder, but eventually Muramasa appeared in front of him and Tensa Zangetsu instantly dropped Ichigo and attacked the white-clad zanpakuto spirit with a scream. Their swords met with a flash of sparks, and Muramasa was driven back halfway across the clearing with the force of the blow before regaining his footing and bracing into the assault.

"Involuntary manifestation before achieving Shikai. Impressive, Kurosaki Ichigo."

Tensa Zangetsu became even angrier, and began running behind his opponent, using every fraction of the speed that Ichigo's bankai was justly famed for and slamming his sword into the other zanpakuto's faster than the eye could follow.

"People keep stabbing me," Ichigo said plaintively from where he was sprawled on the ground. He rubbed the skin over his chest, where there was only dried blood without any trace of a wound. "It's not as easy to survive as I make it look."

"You might want to rethink your life then, King," came the familiar echoing tone of his hollow. He looked to his left, and saw the young man sitting nearby in his white bankai coat, his hair down to his waist, holding the horned mask in one hand and his pale sword in the other.

Behind him stood Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni.

Behind _him_ stood every captain and assistant captain in the Gotei 13.

Ichigo winced, rubbing his eyes and wondering if he could fall back into unconsciousness for a while.

"Busted," the hollow sing-songed. Ichigo pushed himself to his feet, saying "I can explain…"

"Don't bother, _infant_. We have been monitoring you ever since you left the Seireitei this morning. We heard everything and saw everything."

"You _what?_"

"And if we had not, the entirety of Soul Society would have been overrun by Menos! Every hollow that _creature_ absorbed was set free when he merged with you!"

"Oh, we weren't doing so bad on our own," the hollow mused with his typical grin, allowing Ichigo to deduce the reason his powers had released into their final forms.

"There are no words for this… this… _travesty!_" Yamamoto growled. Ichigo could feel the heat radiating off of him from ten feet away, though Yamamoto's sword was still firmly encased in its wooden shell. The grass at his feet was smoldering.

"Consorting with a declared threat to the peace! Offering to free a dangerous criminal! Releasing hundreds of Menos Grande into Soul Society! _Merging with a second zanpakuto!_"

Ichigo flinched. He wasn't sure if this was a dressing-down from a military commander or a disappointed pseudo-grandfather. He wasn't sure which would be worse.

"I- didn't mean for that to happen. I just thought…"

"YOU DIDN'T THINK!"

Ichigo stood straight and faced him. "He deserved better."

"NO HE DOESN'T!" The scream came, not from Yamamoto, but from the throat of the teenager still engaged in a titanic battle with Muramasa in the center of the clearing. Ichigo stared at the fight for a minute.

"I've never seen him that angry."

"Yeah, you'd think Muramasa had raped your soul or something."

Ichigo looked at his hollow in shock. "_What?"_

The pale boy grinned up at him. "You didn't want it, did you?"

"No, but- don't say it like that!"

"Ah. Sorry." The hollow rubbed his chin in a parody of deep contemplation. "Penetrated, then. Penetrated deeply. Without permission. Into virgin territory. There was thrusting involved. Am I doing any better now?"

"…you were less annoying when I could stab you."

"Right back atcha."

Ichigo looked at Yamamoto helplessly. "So, um… what happens when two zanpakuto merge with a shinigami?"

The oldest man in Soul Society had calmed down slightly, and answered him without incinerating the surroundings. "This has never happened before. There is no precedent. It is not _possible_ for a shinigami to host two zanpakuto at once."

"Then how…"

"The old man was never a separate spirit, King," the spirit of his mask answered. "He's a part of you, awakened from your soul when Rukia gave her powers to you. You're human. Your soul is squishy. It molded itself into the shape she showed it in order to fight like you wanted to. It looks like you were still able to bond to a zanpakuto."

"Oh." Ichigo took a deep breath, facing Yamamoto. "So. What now?"

"He was sentenced to be nullified centuries ago. Everything I have seen today supports the wisdom of that judgment."

"I said I would protect him. No matter who he chose."

"Like we didn't all see that one coming," the hollow muttered, rolling his eyes. "He's not worth it."

"I still promised." Kurosaki Ichigo faced the assembled might of the Gotei 13, sword in hand, head held high in determination.

"Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!" came the cry from behind him, as the dark-haired young man charged at Muramasa, daito held in both hands in a traditional kendo grip.

Yamamoto opened his squinted eyes and raised his eyebrows.

"I think he might be picking up on the subtle signs of internal conflict here, partner."

"_Getsuga Tensho!"_ Everyone ducked.

"How is Muramasa keeping up with him? !" The fight had gotten to a level several times more intense than their conflict in the replica of Koga's inner world, and the landscape around the two had become very tattered. The last energy blast had greatly expanded the clearing. Muramasa was consistently on the defensive, and being pressed hard, but was managing to block his opponents' blows without significant injury.

"He's drawing on your power. Both of them are. I didn't know you were such a slut, King."

"You don't seem too upset about this," Ichigo snapped, somehow managing not to punch the other boy.

"Well, I'm not saying I want to share headspace with the guy, but I'm not the sword in this relationship. If you were inviting other hollows into your inner world, we might have a problem." The hollow considered that. "Actually, no we wouldn't. _Please_ invite Nel into your inner world."

"Look, what is your fixation on Nel? It's not happening. She's-"

"If you say the word 'sister' here, I'm cutting your balls off because you clearly have no use for them-"

"WOULD YOU SHUT UP AND HELP ME!" Ichigo's zanpakuto screamed at them both, cutting off the rising argument and making them both blink at him as the fight paused. Muramasa blurred into stillness at the opposite end of the clearing, breathing heavily and with several cuts on his arms and torso.

The dark half of Tensa Zangetsu raised his arm, and pointed it at the light.

The hollow's expression still showed all of his teeth, but could no longer even remotely be called a smile. "Finally."

Ichigo's eyes widened. "Wait a minute-"

"No. No more waiting."

The two boys began to disintegrate, breaking up into a thousand dark and light pieces of power and funneling into their combined final form. Tensa Zangetsu turned and looked at Ichigo, who faced him in return, knowing what was coming.

Half of Tensa Zangetsu wanted the power to destroy the interloper. The other half merely wanted his heart back. The halves were united in the path to their goals.

Tensa Zangetsu darted forward_._ The blade pierced Ichigo's chest and drove in to the hilt. There was no blood. There was no pain. With this sword, there never would be.

Ichigo placed his hand upon the hand of the avatar of his power where it rested on the hilt of the sword. He looked down to where Tensa Zangetsu had fallen to his knees, and bi-colored eyes stared into amber as their spirits met with perfect understanding. Tensa Zangetsu began to break apart once more.

"Goodbye, Ichigo."

The captains and vice captains of Soul Society had been watching with fascination. As the kneeling boy began to return to his soul, though, they felt Ichigo's spirit pressure begin to increase, rising until the weaker vice-captains were kneeling, struggling to breath. It kept rising from there, until they were prostrated face-down, praying for the pain to _end_, and the strongest lieutenants and the captains were falling to their knees clutching their throats. The only one left standing was Yamamoto, though he was visibly leaning on his cane for support. Finally, blessedly, breathing became easier, and as they rose they felt the spirit pressure… not fade, not decrease, but rather spiral upwards and outwards, moving beyond the ability of anyone else in the world to comprehend.

No, actually. That was no longer true.

Muramasa had stood when even Yamamoto was having difficulty, his own power and his new bond to Ichigo sustaining him, but as the spirit pressure faded to everyone else, sweat began to break out on his face, and his breathing became strained. He quickly mimicked the actions of the vice-captains, sinking to his knees and choking, then sinking fully to the ground in pain as the crushing pressure became too much to bear. For the observers he became a barometer, and they used his reactions to judge Ichigo's true power.

Ichigo opened his eyes, once again one with his zanpakuto and its powers. He had forgotten how _clear _everything was in this state. It was as though he had always seen through a mist, and now that mist was pulled away from his eyes and the world was bright and shiny and new. His thoughts were calmer and faster and more focused, his senses were sharper, his reiatsu was cleaner. How could he let himself go back?

He realized that he had his horned mask on his face and hair reaching down his back, as though he had hollowified. This time, in a sense, he had. His coat was the same as the first time, with his tanned right arm bare except for a black glove and his left arm covered except for his hand. The sword was also unchanged, with a crooked cross for a hilt and a chain that wrapped around his arm. He pulled his mask off his face with his free hand and looked across the clearing.

"Muramasa. Why are you groveling?"

His only answer was a strangled gasp. Ichigo lifted something with the flat of his sword, and suddenly the shinigami could see a thick ribbon connecting the two figures, a ribbon colored a red so dark it would have looked black if it had not lain against the black daito. A single twitch of Ichigo's hand would put the razor edge into contact with the ribbon, cutting it away from his body. Instead, he sent a glowing stream of energy down the ribbon to intersect the prostrate zanpakuto, giving him the power he needed to exist this close to Ichigo.

"Stand and face me."

Muramasa gasped, taking in air for the first time in several minutes. He pulled himself to his knees as his gulps slowed, gradually becoming smaller and normal paced. Despite his wounds and exhausted state, Ichigo noticed that he already looked far healthier than when he had been feeding on hollows to survive. He was less obviously consumptive, and his fingernails had receded to a normal length. When he had recovered, he stood, staggering slightly as he gained his feet, and walked to where Ichigo waited. Their eyes met.

"A part of me hates you now," Ichigo said quietly.

"I knew it would. What does the rest of you feel?"

"Pity." The answer was calm, with a serene confidence that the observers had only seen him display in the projected images of the final fight with Aizen. "You are grieving, Muramasa. This was not the answer."

The spirit shook his head slightly in denial. "I am not the sword you fought in the future. My mind is clear. It is the only answer I will ever have."

"This was a violation. A theft of something that was already claimed. An intrusion on a bond that has survived more than you can imagine." He knew that now, with the increased understanding that had come from the sword in his soul; knew it as surely as he knew how to become Getsuga.

"If you had ever bound with a zanpakuto, I could not have done what I did. You created your own partner and gave him your power, then borrowed it back."

"A technicality," Ichigo answered shortly. "He is still my zanpakuto. That bond is sacred. You should know that better than anyone else."

"Your connection is the strongest I have seen, but there is room for another. If we were not compatible, we could not have bonded. I heard your voice when you called to me. I can give you my power. You have forced me from your inner world, and you have shown that you can defeat me in combat. We are already mere months away from achieving bankai."

Renji, in the crowd, palmed his face. Like the kid needed another one…

"I don't need more power, Muramasa. I have to cut my soul apart just to touch my friends. Choose a wielder who can fight with you."

"I have."

"Look at me, Muramasa. I stand before you, whole and complete. My right hand holds my sword; my left hand holds my mask. They are part of me; you can never come before them. Choose someone who will call to you first, who will rely on your power as you rely on theirs."

The turquoise eyes showed no hint of uncertainty. "You stand before me alone. You can no longer hear the voice of your partner. I have felt that pain. I may not be the sword in your hand in battle, but I can wield myself. Let me fight at your side. Let me guard your back. Let me stay."

Ichigo bowed his head, looking at the crimson ribbon against the black daito.

"Please."

Finally, he let his arm drop, and the ribbon disappeared, intact.

"Thank you," Muramasa said quietly.

"If you ever regret your choice, ask and I will let you go."

"I will not regret." Muramasa looked him in the eyes. "My release phrase is-"

"Whisper, Muramasa. I know." And with that, Muramasa disappeared.

Ichigo turned to look at Yamamoto and his subordinates. He met what little of Yamamoto's eyes were showing behind his squint. Ichigo's eyes were completely calm and absolutely confident.

"I will protect him."

"Even though a part of you hates him?"

"Yes. I'll get over it."

"He was correct. He was declared to be a threat to the peace. Do you believe that your power gives you the right to overturn the rulings of our lawful government, whelp?"

A dangerous, dangerous question, and Ichigo was smart enough to know it. He had power, power that they needed, power that would let him force his decisions down their throats. He would fight to protect Muramasa from the government of Seireitei as he had once fought to protect Rukia. That was a given. But if he used his power once, he could use it again, and that way stretched Koga's path, and Aizen's. When did his might stop making right?

Was this why Yamamoto followed the arbitrary dictates of a corrupt bureaucracy?

A newly familiar voice, one far more accustomed to hidden plans and circular thinking, whispered the solution into his mind.

"Did they name Muramasa? Or did they name Kuchiki Koga's zanpakuto?"

"A technicality," Yamamoto said, quoting Ichigo's words. "He is still that zanpakuto."

"The powers of Kuchiki Koga's zanpakuto have been nullified. The sentence has been carried out. Has anyone told you to do anything about my sword?"

Yamamoto snorted. "When did you become a barracks lawyer, boy?" But he relaxed his grip on his cane, and the tension in the clearing decreased as it became clear that a confrontation had been avoided- at least until the next time Ichigo decided that a ruling of the Central 46 was worth fighting against.

"Sorry 'bout the Gillians." The chain around Ichigo's arm unwrapped itself as he relaxed, and twisted around him to hang his sword from his waist. The mask in his hand dissolved; it would appear on his face the second it was needed without him having to consciously call it. Like the sword, it was now an extension of him. There wasn't much he could do about the hair, though. It was waist-length, flowing, and already starting to annoy him. Ichigo saw his projector on the ground, with the crystal inside gray and cracked.

"Mayuri. I broke another one." He tossed the globe to the clown-faced captain, who caught it narrow-eyed. This one, at least, would provide some useful data on the nature of the power it had been exposed to. A crystal that had been attuned to the reiatsu of a being whose reiatsu could no longer be felt…

Ichigo looked back at Yamamoto. "I've got some goodbyes to say, but I'm leaving tonight."

"Sleep and eat before you go, boy. Impatience is foolish." It was getting towards dusk now; the trip to find Muramasa, the confrontation and the binding, and the fight with the Menos that Ichigo had not been conscious for had taken up the entire day.

"I don't need to sleep," Ichigo said, knowing that instinctively. There was too much power in him, too much energy. He reached up and touched a leaf with a bare finger. The place where he touched instantly disintegrated, leaving a clear outline in the leaf. "I don't think I need to eat, either." He hoped not, anyway. Food would turn to ashes in his mouth. He paused before flash-stepping away.

"You saw everything? All of you?"

Yamamoto gave a curt nod.

"Good. Hitsugaya-taicho," and Ichigo was suddenly standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the white-haired boy, his ungloved left hand on Hitsugaya's left shoulder with the innermost finger dangerously close to his uncovered pulse. Around Ichigo's hand, the white haori slowly began blackening.

The youngest captain in the Gotei 13 instantly began praying to become 'Toshiro' again.

"Stay out of the living world." And with a final pat to the shoulder, Ichigo was gone.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo located Rukia, Ishida, and Orihime's reiatsu signatures conveniently all together. They were walking towards the direction of the Fourth Division, and didn't react when he dropped silently to the ground behind them.

"Guys-" he began, but was interrupted as they all turned in shock, with Rukia's hands on her sword, Orihime's raised towards the blue flowers in her hair, and Ishida's attempting to draw back a bow that he had not been able to call for almost three weeks.

Ichigo blinked at them as they relaxed, breathing heavily. Ishida internally cursed his loss of power once more as he said "Don't _do_ that, Kurosaki."

They hadn't noticed the changes that his training had made in the way he moved. They hadn't needed to; anyone with a trace of reiatsu sense _always_ knew when Ichigo was nearby. Not feeling him now was, frankly, creepy.

"Sorry," he answered absently. "Do you know what happened?"

"Kuchiki-san brought us to the monitoring room today," Orihime answered quietly. "We stayed after everyone left for the fight. The recorders weren't affected when the projection stone was destroyed."

Ichigo's habitual scowl deepened. "Recorders?"

"They weren't monitoring you just today, Kurosaki," Ishida told him grimly. "The recorders in the kido projector don't turn off. They've been spying on you since Ukitake gave it to you."

The sword around Ichigo's waist was in his hand and his mask was on his face before he felt his own fury. As the three flinched back from the sudden appearance of the horned white mask in fear, he stopped short, and then took the time to _force_ himself to calm down. A swing of his sword could pulverize mountains from the air pressure alone. If he lost his temper _they would die_ and it wasn't even them he was angry with.

Well, not all of them. As his mask finally disappeared he turned to the only one who might have followed an order to keep silent. "Rukia?"

She looked away. "I found out when you retreated to the living world, after the memories of Senna. They knew you were not going to tell them everything, and believed that the information you were hiding could be dangerous." She took a deep breath and met his eyes. "Access to everything except what you decided everyone could see is restricted."

"_In the Seireitei_," Ishida said coldly. Rukia's glare did not stop him from continuing. "The Vizards have been given copies of the memories too. _All_ of them."

His family… shit. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. Twice. "They had no right." He did not move a centimeter, and called on every fraction of restraint he had to keep still until he was sure he was in control of himself.

"_They were correct,_ Ichigo!" she snapped back. "We watched that fight! Your hollow and Zangetsu couldn't guard you and hunt at the same time! Gillians were wandering around freely before the captains got there! Do you _know_ how many towns there are in the Forty-third North?"

He started to retort, but –

– they all paused, simultaneously, and looked up as they _felt_ the new presences from the darkened sky far above them.

"What-" Rukia asked, argument forgotten, as they sensed a mixture of hollow and shinigami that previously they had only felt when Ichigo had fought Yamamoto-

"Kurosaki-kun, who are they?" Orihime whispered, eyes wide.

"Ulquiorra and Yammy." The two strongest of the arrancar, weeks early and in the wrong location. What was Aizen playing at?

He jumped up, heading to the top of the sky.

"Ichigo, wait!" Rukia yelled after him, before huffing and jumping on the air, straining to solidify it under her feet with her partially recovered power.

Orihime reached high and put a hand on Rukia's arm. "Kuchiki-san, they're above the dome."

Rukia realized she was right, and sighed as she dropped to the ground. There were more auras approaching from the north, as the uppermost ranks sensed the invasion and raced back to the center of Soul Society. He would have reinforcements shortly, whether he needed the help or not.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

The spherical protection field emitted from the walls of sekki-sekki stone surrounding the Seireitei was intended to disintegrate the spirit particles of anything that attempted to invade from the air or burrow through the ground. It was possible to get through, but only by using a shield of spirit particles so dense that the field couldn't destroy all of them before the invaders passed through.

It didn't even slow Ichigo down.

He continued up towards the rip in the darkened sky. The two white-clad figures stood, the smaller one with his hands full, waiting for Ichigo to reach their level.

"Hey, Ulquiorra" the craggy giant grunted as he came to a stop in front of them, "is this the guy?"

"Yes. Orange hair, black coat, and no trace of reiatsu. There is no mistaking it. He was as easy to draw out as Aizen-sama said he would be."

Ichigo wasn't listening to the vaguely familiar conversation. He was staring instead at the four objects Ulquiorra was holding in his hands.

A coin dangling from a string. His father's sword, Engetsu. And two locks of hair, one dark, one light.

"I killed you too quickly."

He had waited too long.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

**AN:**

Let me answer most of the questions I'm anticipating for this chapter all at once.

I have just made all of Ichigo's training in the last ten chapters utterly useless. This was planned from the beginning of the story, which means that I did so deliberately and with malice aforethought.

There are many reasons why. My estimation of the relative power levels of Deicide Ichigo and Soul Society Aizen was given in the first and fifth chapters, when Ichigo was winning the fight despite being wounded so badly that he should not have been capable of movement.

That was at the beginning of the story. Since then, in what I hope is a realistic, believable manner, I have A) made Ichigo immune to Kyoka Suigetsu, B) given him access to every single one of the powers he showed in the manga, C) tacked on one of the most powerful Zanpakuto in the extended Bleach universe, and D) made him into a ninja.

On Aizen's side of things, at this point in the timeline, the Hogyoku is still dormant unless briefly awakened by 'merging with someone with twice the power of a captain', and even when he had full access to the powers of the Hogyoku in the Deicide arc, Ichigo was dominating the final fight. In canon Aizen outmaneuvers the opponents he cannot outfight, and I have emphasized Ichigo's weaknesses repeatedly and from multiple points of view throughout the story. The defining fight scene of the story was, and was always intended to be, Ichigo v. Yamamoto, not Ichigo v. Aizen.

The next chapter will be mostly flashbacks. It will show how Aizen dun it. Ichigo's presence will be minimal. **The bad news:** I hope to have it up in two weeks, but I am packing up and moving to a different state in preparation for starting a new job, so that may not happen. The most I can promise is that it will be up sometime in May.

**The teaser:**

"If he's here, then it's a trap! You _know_ that!"

"I swore I would kill him, Kisuke. I swore it on her grave."

**Edit after reading the initial reviews for this chapter: **Woah. Hostage situation, not death. Would you believe that particular interpretation of the scene hadn't occurred to me?

**Edit after another day thinking about it:** Although if that was people's automatic reaction to that scene, it would probably be Ichigo's as well. I now know how the first scene of the next chapter will start. Thank you!


	15. Chapter 14 Logical Extrapolations

Disclaimer: I have not gained ownership of Bleach within the last month.

**Warnings:** Excessive bad language, as usual.

**FANART!** Too-cool-to-have-a-penname has drawn a picture of Spy!Zangetsu from chapter 12. It's at

http :/ / ghostofyourmind. deviantart. com/art/ My-Name-is-Getsu-Zan-Getsu-206494607

(take out the spaces) and there is also a link on my profile. Thank you!

**Author's note**: I had planned to update last month, but did not. I'm not going to apologize for this one, although I dislike missing even self-imposed deadlines. At the end of April I broke my collarbone badly enough to require surgery to put the bones back together, and moved halfway across the US less than two weeks later anyway. Fanfic writing deservedly dropped to somewhere below dealing with health insurance on my priority list. I start work Monday, however, and wanted to get this chapter out before beginning the new job.

I realized something interesting when I watched the Aizen-Gin fight: when Gin grabbed the Hogyoku out of Aizen's chest, Aizen reached for him and grazed Gin's arm. The flesh where he touched dissolved. (It's much easier to see in the anime, which hadn't gotten that far when I started writing the story). That means that having people with extremely high spiritual energy dissolve ordinary living/spiritual matter by touching it is canon. I thought I'd made it up, but I think I must have read about it in the Bleach Wiki, decided to use the idea, and then forgotten where I'd got it. That means that the only extension of this power that is not necessarily true in Bleach is that Ichigo would do the same thing even if his reiatsu was not able to be sensed. In the Deicide arc, the only people we see him touching are Isshin (who was fully clothed and slung over Ichigo's covered arm) and the 'transcendental' Aizen (in the epic facepalm scene), so I don't think I've actually contradicted anything we see in the series.

I mention this because, since I didn't pull it out of thin air, it means I feel justified as using it in the story as a weapon rather than just a major inconvenience. You have been warned.

**A note about the format of this chapter**: I've used italics throughout the story to represent events in the past, and I've continued using that convention. However, the scenes in italics in this chapter are just straight-out flashbacks organized generally in chronological order, and are from multiple points of view. I do make use of Ulquiorra's ability to show an event he has seen in the past (and that part is not italicized), but the scenes in italics are not necessarily from his perspective.

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_"Hey, Ulquiorra" the craggy giant grunted as he came to a stop in front of them, "is this the guy?"_

_"Yes. Orange hair, black coat, and no trace of reiatsu. There is no mistaking it. He was as easy to draw out as Aizen-sama said he would be."_

_Ichigo wasn't listening to the vaguely familiar conversation. He was staring instead at the four objects Ulquiorra was holding in his hands._

_A coin dangling from a string. His father's sword, Engetsu. And two locks of hair, one dark, one light._

_"I killed you too quickly."_

_He had waited too long._

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"Seriously? He doesn't look that tough. At least he saved us the trouble of looking for him!" Yammy took a step forward, placing himself in front of Ulquiorra, whose eyes had narrowed at Ichigo's words. The giant raised his fist. "I'm lucky!"

Ichigo didn't even feel angry. The ice spreading through his veins precluded any emotion. The black daito remained hung from the chain around his waist, and his face was bare as he took the first step forward.

/ _"You're the one who did that to Chad's arm, right? You owe him your arm."_/

Yammy began to throw the punch, but the reiatsu-less human was no longer in front of him.

He had just enough time to register the sudden burst of feeling in his center before his vision went dark.

The Espada Diez fell in two separate pieces to disintegrate on the dome far below them. Ichigo flicked the blood off of his gloved hand before turning calmly towards Ulquiorra, who had been pushed far back by the shock wave of the knife-hand strike that had bifurcated Yammy.

An eye for an eye, and his pain for theirs, and before he was finished the walls of Las Noches would be reduced to rubble and the rubble ground to sand, and Aizen would wish he had died from the sword through his head so many days ago-

In the bare instant between when Ichigo met Ulquiorra's eyes and when he appeared next to the pale Arrancar, his ungloved left hand reaching for Ulquiorra's throat, the black-haired man began a word.

As Ulquiorra's vocal cords disintegrated, he finished it, and Ichigo froze.

"_Alive…"_

It was the one word that could have stopped the being Ulquiorra faced. Ichigo's hand was instantly gone from Ulquiorra's throat, and the black-haired Arrancar choked, trying futilely to take in air through his open mouth. Despite his injury, the only other change in his expression as he doubled over was a slight widening of his green eyes.

The comforting weight of his sword slid into Ichigo's hand, and his grip tightened on the hilt as he waited through the eternal seconds for Ulquiorra's throat to heal. As the skin reformed over his throat he stood, but did not speak. Instead, to Ichigo's mild disgust, he reached to his eye and crushed it into motes of sparkling dust.

As the glitter floated past Ichigo, Yamamoto, Ukitake, Kyoraku, Yoruichi, Byakuya, and Soi Fon flashed into place surrounding the two men, with the remaining forces coming up fast behind them. Ulquiorra's message played within the mind's eye of everyone within range.

The scene was of Aizen sitting on an enormous white couch, four bound figures on the floor in front of him. Karin and Yuzu were huddled together beside their father, who, like Chad, was unconscious and wearing the same type of reiatsu-sealing collar that Rukia had worn when scheduled to be executed. Karin was glaring at Aizen, and Yuzu was holding part of Isshin's shihakusho to a wound on her father's head.

"Kurosaki Ichigo. The lives of your family depend on your actions. I suggest you listen carefully."

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_Aizen and Tosen strode into the meeting room. Their arrival was the signal for the tea to be served to the ten Espada already lining the table, and when everyone had a cup, the meeting began._

"_As some of you are already aware, I have lived through this timeline once already. We attacked Soul Society on schedule several months from now. In the final battle, an unanticipated event caused the Hogyoku to return me to the point in time when I first acquired it several days ago. This meeting is to discuss the alterations in the plan of attack that must be made to adjust for the changed circumstances." Aizen took a sip of tea while the Espada who had not learned of the time travel adjusted to the new knowledge. _

"_The primary challenge is that I did not come back alone; the Hogyoku also returned the soul of my opponent, Kurosaki Ichigo. The wounds he took in our battle may have proven fatal, but if he is alive he will provide the shinigami with his –albeit incomplete—knowledge of the war in the future. _

"_Preliminary observations of his home in the human world-" but Aizen was cut off by Grimmjow's startled exclamation._

"_He's human?"_

_Aizen inclined his head tolerantly. "Yes, though his father is a former shinigami captain, and like yourselves he is capable of using both shinigami and hollow powers. You found him a formidable opponent, Grimmjow, and he has increased in power since your last fight. Do not underestimate him solely for his species." Grimmjow snarled slightly at the rebuke, and Aizen took another drink before continuing. "He retains his ties to the human world, however, and those are easily exploited. His body is still alive, and when his soul resides in it he is as weak as any other human. He is also devoted to his family and friends. _

"_Harribel, Ulquiorra, and Zomarri," the Espada most capable of following his orders without falling asleep, destroying the surroundings, or devouring huge numbers of human souls, "report that his body and his family have been evacuated from their residence, proving that Kurosaki lived long enough to order them to move. If he is dead, then the knowledge I have of the likely battle plans of the Gotei 13 will grant us an easy victory in the war."_

"_And if he lives?" Barragan asked._

_Aizen smiled. "Then our victory will be even easier."_

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"When this message is completed they will be separated and held in three distant areas of Las Noches. Their guards will be in constant communication with each other and with myself. If a shinigami's reiatsu is sensed entering the dimension, one of them will be killed at random. If one area loses contact, the remaining hostages will be instantly killed."

"Ichi-nii! Don't lismmph-" Karin was silenced by Ulquiorra's hand as he sonidoed next to her. He returned to his original position, still holding Karin, who was now attempting to bite through his Hierro.

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_The Espada Tres entered the throne room, removing the bracelet that would hide her presence from any being but an Arrancar. She bowed to the high throne, ignoring the figures on the many crags on the walls. "I have returned, Aizen-sama."_

"_Welcome back, Harribel. Please, begin your report."_

"_There is a human boy matching your description at the shop. There are also two children and a dark-haired man in addition to the shopkeeper, but one of the children is a redheaded boy, and the man has a moustache, not a beard. As ordered, we did not approach the shop to investigate closer, but if the father and sisters are present, they are taking more care to keep hidden. No other human within the range of my Pesquisa matched your descriptions. Ulquiorra and my Fraccion are searching farther out while Zomarri continues the observation. If they are still on the island, we will know by tomorrow."_

"_Thank you. Please continue the search, but do not leave Japan. Urahara Kisuke works close to his own base of operations; he will not have sent them far. In your search, pay attention to any odd feeling of confusion or disorientation. One of his allies has shown considerable facility with barriers."_

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"In exchange for their freedom, you will enter the Dangai Precipice World under escort, and drop your sword and mask into the currents of time. The hostages will be held in a randomly selected location in Hueco Mundo. The key to their prison is built into a power-sealing collar. You will allow for your reiatsu to be interfered with by the world around you, and place the collar around your neck."

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_Szayel Apporo Grantz watched nervously as Aizen removed the Hogyoku from its transparent container and placed his hand within the black circlet. His greatest strength lay in analyzing and countering the strengths of his opponent. To be asked to neutralize a power he literally was not capable of comprehending had proven challenging, and Aizen had been… terribly understanding of the previous failures._

_The Hogyoku extended tiny tendrils around the fingers of Aizen's hand, fusing with him for a single second and allowing Aizen to briefly bring their combined power against the full force of the reiatsu limiter. The scientist was forced to look away from the flash of light that threatened to burn out his retinas- light that was then funneled into a small container attached to the side of the collar. It shattered, releasing a golden key. As Aizen withdrew his hand, Szayel hurried forward to study his creation. He sighed in relief upon seeing that, this time, there were no cracks in the dark stone._

_Aizen took the circlet from the scientist for his own inspection, and nodded approvingly. "Well done." He handed it back. "Now triple it."_

_Szayel twitched as Aizen replaced the Hogyoku and walked away._

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"When your power is sealed, the key will be released and delivered to your family, and they will return to Karakura through a Garganta. The prison will be air-tight. I recommend you be prompt."

Ichigo narrowed his eyes slightly. As though there was any way he could trust Aizen to let them go-

"The key will be delivered by Neliel Tu Odelschwanck, who will also choose the location of the enclosure."

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_A little girl wearing a green robe and cloak ran shrieking through the desert, pursued by three hollows. As she crested a sand dune, she stopped abruptly, and was promptly flattened as her followers tripped over her._

_As they disentangled themselves, __Dondochakka__ and Pesche looked to see what- or rather, who- had disturbed the game. Pesche gave a strangled gasp of recognition, and fell to one knee, with __Dondochakka__ following an instant later. Nel frowned at them._

"_Whatsa matter?"_

"_I have been looking for you, Neliel." The white-clad man walked calmly up the dune, raising a black crystal in his right hand. "It is time for you to return home."_

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Ichigo closed his eyes. Nel. Yes, she was the only Arrancar he could trust to see them to safety. They had never met in this timeline, but he knew her well enough to know that she would never harm a child.

She had been an Espada, though, and Aizen had made sure that he was capable of hypnotizing all his followers, and what she saw might not be true-

"You will be placed in contact with the hostages when the Senkaimon opens. Yasutora and your sisters can confirm that these arrangements have been followed, and that the key that will be placed in the collar is the one that sealed the enclosure." Aizen nodded briefly to Yuzu, still crouched beside her father and watching her twin struggle in dismay. "They, like yourself, have never seen Kyoka Suigetsu in its released state."

Yuzu took a deep, shaky breath. Closed her eyes, so similar to their mothers'. Spoke. "He's lying. We saw him change his sword when he used it against Sado-san. Don't, nii-san. He'll just trick us too."

It was Yuzu who had stepped up at four years old and done her best to fill the void in the family that their mother's death had left behind. Ichigo had always been startled by how often the people who knew them both assumed that Karin was the stronger twin.

But Ichigo and all of the shinigami surrounding him lived the message from Ulquiorra's point of view, and felt Karin stiffen in his arms before relaxing in sudden understanding, and knew that it wasn't Aizen who was lying.

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_Zommari entered the throne room and bowed. "Aizen-sama. The target is confirmed to have survived. He appeared in the mortal world through a Garganta approximately an hour ago. Two unknown males are with him, standing guard. I have been sent back for further orders."_

"_Well, fuck! Let's just kill him now then!" Nnoitra snapped, hefting his crescent-moons blade._

"_I would be displeased if any of you attacked him, Nnoitra. I do not wish to lose any of my Espada." Aizen's smile was slightly mocking, and the Quinta Espada settled back, sneering. Aizen returned his attention to the dark-skinned Septima. "He constructed a Garganta? It would seem he has been making his own plans."_

"_We have not approached him. Because Kurosaki has both hollow and shinigami powers, Ulquiorra was concerned that he would be able to sense us through the spirit shield. Should we attempt closer observation?"_

"_No, you have accomplished your mission. Inform Harribel and Ulquiorra that they may return. The attack will proceed on schedule."_

_Zommari hesitated. It was not his place to object, but… "We have still not had any success in locating his family, Aizen-sama."_

_Aizen's smile deepened slightly. "Please, do not be troubled. There are other methods."_

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Aizen inclined his head slightly at the auburn-haired girl in mocking respect. "A brave attempt, child, but Kurosaki is well aware that there is nothing Yasutora Sado could do to force me to release my sword in battle." He returned his attention to the message.

"Should you accept these terms, I will give you a twelve-hour grace period before the Senkaimon opens, and you may choose four companions to accompany Neliel. None of them may be current or former captains of the Gotei 13. Should you refuse, of course, your family and friend will be killed instantly.

"Ulquiorra will deliver your reply."

The message in the memory ended.

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_Everyone in the warehouse stiffened simultaneously, looking to the north. There were suddenly several new, strange auras in the general vicinity of the Urahara-shoten. Shinji ran to the common room to turn on the screen that was their only connection to the outside world. Tessai answered, looking as unflappable as ever._

"_What's the situation?" Behind Shinji, Hachi, Mashiro, and Love burst into the room._

"_Seven Arrancar. They are not ones we have seen in any of the memories Ichigo-san has shown us. The boss is preparing the defenses as we speak." He pushed his glasses up his nose, allowing the light to flash off of the lenses. "We are not sitting ducks."_

_Shinji hesitated, then sighed and asked, "Have you called the shinigami?" The rest of the occupants of the warehouse, save for Isshin, were by now all in the room._

_Tessai shook his head. "None of them are strong enough to be Espada. Urahara believes this is a feint, and that the stronger fighters are waiting to ambush the reinforcements when they come through the Senkaimon."_

_Love frowned. "Do they want to kill the kid's body?"_

"_It would be an uncertain target," Urahara strode into view holding what appeared to be two video game joysticks his hand and handed one to Tessai. "If he is not currently housed in it, there is no guarantee that Ichigo-san would be harmed. I doubt this attack is aimed at Ichigo. He wants to draw out-"_

"_Hachi." They all turned. Isshin stood in the doorway. For his daughter's comfort he had stayed in his gigai even though the vizard did not bother at home, but now he was clad in full shihakusho, Engetsu at his side. "Open the barrier."_

"_Isshin-san, this is what Aizen Sosuke wants." Urahara's voice was quiet, almost resigned. "No matter how well you shield your reiatsu, you cannot hide it completely, and he knows you are coming. He wants you to give away your location. If Grand Fisher is here, then it's a trap. You _know_ that."_

"_I swore I would kill him, Kisuke. I swore it on her grave."_

"_Grand Fisher- the hollow who killed-" Karin's eyes were narrowed in hate. "Do it, Oyaji."_

_Hachi bowed his head. "No kido or cero can pass through my barrier. If the Hogyoku has not yet woken, we can survive a siege. This _must_ be the last time I open a door, though. If our position is compromised, we cannot allow anyone entry. You will not be able to return."_

_Isshin nodded grimly. "Ichigo leaves tomorrow. Hopefully, it won't be for long."_

"_And if you're captured, Isshin? What do you think he would do then?"_

"_Nothing. He won't think I'm worth the world. If the worst happens, talk some sense into him, Kisuke." Isshin sighed. "I have to do this. He'll understand."_

_Urahara nodded, tipping his hat over his eyes. Behind him, Tessai was busily manipulating the controller, beginning to direct a century's worth of defensive preparation by the most intelligent man in Soul Society against the invaders. "I'll help keep the others off your back, then." _

"_Seven on two's not very sporting. You'll need another sword." _

_Isshin bowed his head slightly. "Thank you, Taicho."_

_Aikiwa Love clapped his friend on the shoulder in passing. "Believe it." _

_Kensei shrugged and joined him, and Mashiro followed. When Chad stood up as well, Isshin shook his head. "No one else. You may need the fighters before this is over."_

_Chad hesitated, and then nodded silently with a glance at the twins. They came to their father and embraced him. Yuzu gave him a wavering smile. "I can see you, Daddy."_

"_Good luck, goat-face."_

_Isshin looked at the screen. "Kiskuke, I know you have two of your own already, but…"_

"_I'll make sure they're taken care of, if it's necessary."_

_Hachi walked with them to the edge of the warehouse, and the barrier opened for the final time._

_Aizen, standing undetected a short distance away from where Barragan's Fraccion were attacking Urahara's shop, opened his eyes and smiled as an alarm on the device in Ulquiorra's hand started beeping. Ulquiorra, standing on his right side, glanced at the display and pointed out the direction. At Aizen's left, the Segunda Espada grunted and held his double-bladed axe in front of him, hilt up._

"_Rot, Arrogante."_

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There were still too many things that Aizen could do to kill them, despite the lengths to which Aizen had clearly gone to make Ichigo trust the setup. Ensuring that the air-tight cage be impossible to unlock, placing a bomb in the cage, have them attacked as soon as Nel's Garganta returned them to the human world- his mind went through a dozen scenarios that would end in the deaths of his little sisters. Aizen's word meant nothing.

But…

But the only opponents Aizen had tried to kill were Yamamoto and Gin. He left everyone else alive to watch his victory in despairing impotence. Chad, Isshin, Karin, and Yuzu would be beneath his notice once the deal was complete.

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_Isshin and his Vizard companions arrived to see Urahara and Ururu fighting two Arrancar, one bare-chested and covered with red tattoos, the other taller than a skyscraper, while the others attempted to penetrate a glowing blue pyramidal shield that had sprung up around the shop. Tessai was seated in tailor pose with his hands clasped together, chanting, and Kon and Jinta were busily manipulating the two controllers to shoot blue bolts of lightning from the shield towards the remaining Arrancar._

_Grand Fisher, already in Resurreccion, snarled and attempted once more to stomp on the barrier directly above Kon, and was thrown back with a shock. Kon smirked and aimed carefully, focusing on the ground under the Arrancar's feet rather than on Grand Fisher himself. He wouldn't hurt anyone, but he didn't mind making them dance._

"_Get out here, you little shit!" _

_Kon's response was to pull down an eyelid and stick out his tongue, prompting the massive ram-horned arrancar to pull out his building-high sword and smash the blue surface once again. The energy in the shield promptly flowed down the sword to shock his hand, and he dropped his weapon with a curse._

_Ggio Vega easily dodged the attack from the much bloodier-minded redhead, and rolled his eyes with a sneer. "Why did Aizen-sama saddle us with this pathetic weakling?"_

_"Something about a grudge. I wasn't paying much attention," Findor Klarius answered. "Incoming."_

"_I feel them." They left the barrier and sped towards the newcomers, intercepting Love and Mashiro respectively. Kensei looked at the next-closest arrancar, a vaguely elephantine blond man._

"_I am His Majesty Barragan's Fraccion, Arrancar no. 27, Nirgge Parduoc."_

"_I'm Mugarama Kensei. And I'm gonna crush you."_

_Isshin ignored the Numeros on the far side of the shop, a bizarrely dressed Arrancar with purple hair and a tiara for a hollow mask, in favor of the furred giant who had just picked up his sword. "Ever think of picking on someone your own size?"_

"_Who are you?"_

_Isshin smiled genially, sword in hand. "I already know who you are, Fisher, and it doesn't look like I have the time to chat, so I'll make this short and traditional. _

"_My name is Kurosaki Isshin. You killed the love of my life and the mother of my children. Prepare to die."_

_The arrancar began chuckling. "You think you can defeat me with that pathetically tiny sword, boy-"_

_He was in two pieces before he realized he had been cut._

_Isshin took a deep, cleansing breath before flicking the blood off his blade. The various battles paused to watch Grand Fisher fall. "Go free, Masaki."_

"_Over here, love! I am His Majesty Barragan's number one fraccion, __Charlotte Cuuhlhourne!"_

_Isshin blinked._

"_Hey hey hey! It's polite to introduce yourself, you know!" the drag queen called. The former captain took another deep breath. He had hurried through the death of his wife's murderer for this?_

_He raised his sword, preparing to complete the introduction to combat, but as he opened his mouth, a high-pitched siren came screaming from the shop._

"_That's the warehouse alarm!" Urahara called, withdrawing slightly from his own fight. "They're under attack!"_

"_Hachi can hold them," Love called back, blocking a strike from the blond Numeros. Findor smiled and pulled back._

"_That would be our cue to retreat, actually."_

"_What a shame." Cuuhlhourne winked at Isshin. "I was looking forward to it."_

"_Eh? You're just giving up?" Mashiro asked Ggoi Vega, pulling her bug-mask off her face as her opponent sonidoed back to join his companions._

"_This attack is no longer necessary," the slender arrancar replied, a cruel smile on his face, while behind him Findor opened a Garganta. "If Barragan-sama has found your location, it is finished. No force on earth is eternal."_

"_Barragan… would this be Barragan Luisenbarn, the second Espada?" Urahara asked, recalling the Espada lecture._

"_Doesn't matter what his number is," Kensei snarled, joining Isshin and Urahara across from the group of Numeros. "He won't be able to get past Hachi."_

"_Actually, cutie," Cuuhlhourne said cheerfully, turning to follow the other five, "Aizen-sama says he already did."_

_Isshin heard the words, but was running before they truly registered, flash stepping as fast and as far as he could, though each step seemed to take an eternity. He came to a stop in front of the warehouse, which now had a gaping hole in the sliding door, then flashed in without encountering any barrier. _

_He ran past Hachi, now unconscious and missing his left arm, and Hiyori, nearly sliced in half. Shinji, Rose, and Lisa were also alive and sporting mocking imitations of the wounds that Aizen would have given them in the future. He burst into the common room, to see Aizen standing over the bodies of his children, and his heart froze. Blood, so much blood-_

_He charged at Aizen with a scream, piercing his chest with Engetsu, only to have his figure and the bodies of his daughters dissolve into thin air as a sword hilt cracked into his temple. He went flying into the far wall, and stood with a groan. He faced Aizen, or what might have been Aizen, and raised his sword defiantly._

"_Where are they?"_

_Aizen smiled. "Alive, and already on their way to Hueco Mundo. I thank you for your assistance, Kurosaki Isshin. Your predictability has ensured my victory. Once again, you came running as soon as you felt the hollow that killed your wife."_

_Isshin's grip on Engetsu tightened. "Once again?"_

"_Yes, you killed him in the original timeline, in a scene worthy of any samurai drama." Aizen's smirk deepened. "I was, however, fairly certain you had not bothered to inform your son about it."_

"_What do you want?"_

"_A rather clichéd question, don't you think? I'm sure you know my general goals by now."_

_Isshin snarled, barely controlling himself enough to stop himself from attacking Aizen again. "What do you want from me?" _

_The reply came from his side, as a second strike in the same spot sent him spiraling down into unconsciousness. "Nothing but a spare hostage."_

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"I accept."

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Author's Notes:

I am never attempting to write Charlotte Cuuhlhourne again.

The bracelets that hid the Arrancar in Karakura are the same as the one Ulquiorra gave Orihime before she was taken to Hueco Mundo. My thought when reading that scene was, 'wow, that's staggeringly useful, why aren't Aizen's forces using and abusing their jewelry?' (Honestly, probably because in the series, Aizen wasn't really focusing on any covert operations.) The power-sealing circlets that Isshin and Chad are wearing are basically the same as the one Rukia had when waiting to be executed; Szayel's challenge was to make a version strong enough to be able to contain the sheer amount of reiatsu that Ichigo would be leaking if he brought it down to a level where they could sense it. Although there is nothing in the series that would suggest that Urahara's shop would have the defenses I describe, I think that Soul Society's most brilliant inventor would have some nasty surprises around the place he's lived for a century.

I have attempted to make the flaws in Ichigo's preparations based on stuff he legitimately would not know, like the fact that Barragan had aged through every barrier Hachi put up in their fight, rather than any sort of ass-pull on Aizen's part. Isshin was being drawn out and knew it, but because they didn't know that Hachi's barriers were vulnerable (as far as Ichigo knew, only Orihime was able to get through them) he thought he was only putting himself at risk, not his daughters, and was willing to do so to destroy the hollow that had devoured his wife's soul.

There are two chapters and an epilogue left in the story. The next chapter, which will span the twelve-hour grace period and include the fight with Aizen from the Vizard's point of view, will hopefully be up by the end of June, but I start a new job tomorrow and don't know how much free time I'll have yet. If I don't think it'll be up by July 1, I'll put a firmer post date on my profile.

No spoiler this chapter; I haven't made up any memorable lines yet.


	16. Chapter 15 The Darkest Hour

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

**Spoiler Alert**: As usual, the manga/anime up through the Deicide arc.

**Warnings:** General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; in this chapter, it's mostly Zaraki. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

Happy 4th of July for the Americans in the audience!

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"_I accept."_

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Ulquiorra nodded, unsurprised. "Choose your companions."

"He knew who they would be when he chose the number. Deliver your message, Ulquiorra."

"Abarai, Inoue, Ishida, and Kuchiki were the names Aizen-sama gave. Are they the ones who will accompany you?"

Before answering the pale Esapada, Ichigo glanced at the redheaded lieutenant in the audience. Renji nodded grimly once.

"Yes."

"The Senkaimon will form at dawn, at the place where you came back in time." Ulquiorra turned in midair, ripping a black hole in the darkened sky. Before he stepped into the threshold, Ichigo spoke one final time.

"Grimmjow might have lived. I chose not to kill him, and he could have survived his injuries. I don't know what happened to Yammy. The first time, anyway." Ichigo glanced down, and Ulquiorra followed his gaze down to the part of the dome that had incinerated the bisected corpse of the weakest and strongest Espada.

"He was a fool. He never learned to evaluate an opponent's strength."

Ichigo looked back up and met Ulquiorra's green eyes. "The rest of you died. Aizen didn't care, and didn't stop it. Every shinigami but Gin and Tosen survived."

It was almost impossible to tell with Ulquiorra, but as he turned to enter the Garganta his face might have been a bit more expressionless than before.

"Think about why you're following him." Ichigo's voice followed him as the rip closed. After it did, without looking around, the teenager took a deep, calming breath.

The Vizard. Aizen wouldn't have taken his family without a fight. He made a short, sharp gesture of his own, taking a step forward and forming a second Garganta where the first had closed.

"Stay where you are, boy, and calm down." Yamamoto said, finally speaking after watching the short exchange silently. "There are other possibilities."

"I'm not going after them. You heard Aizen; they'd be killed. It's to Karakura." Ichigo looked at the captain and lieutenant of the Fourth, who had joined the rest of the senior officers (and Ikkaku and Yumichika) in the fight with the Menos, but whose services had not been needed. "Can you come?"

Unohana nodded as she and Isane joined him. "Of course, but… Kurosaki-san…" and she stretched a hand out to rest on his covered shoulder. He shrugged it off and stepped into the Garganta.

"We'll be back soon, then." He waited for them to join him before the portal closed behind him and the two healers started running. He was in the lead, but was running on the black, torrential energy that formed the raw material of the Garganta; no path formed beneath his feet. A smooth road of silver reishi formed beneath Unohana's feet, and Isane ran close behind her as they went to see who could still be saved.

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Neliel tu Odelschwank, former Espada Tres, current rank undefined, walked calmly through the halls of Las Noches to collect her new charges. She was dressed in her customary modest white pantsuit with Gazmusa hanging at her hip, and her hand brushed across the unbroken goat-skull mask on her head in a recently acquired habitual gesture as she turned the corner to the hall leading to Aizen Sosuke's throne room. Her stride paused slightly at the sight of the tall, thin man leaning against the wall, but she passed him without speaking.

Nnoitra bared his teeth, and swung the giant double-crescent-moon scythe in his hand. "Don't ignore me!"

The blade passed through the green-haired woman's afterimage, and she reappeared slightly down the hallway. Her voice was calm as she glanced back at him. "All these years, Nnoitra, and you remain more of a child than I ever was."

"Bitch," the Quinta Espada snarled. "I've been waiting a long time for this, Neliel. Draw your sword!"

"I have no reason to fight you." She turned away again. Though the words would have pushed him into a fury, back when she was Tres and he was Octava, now it only made him laugh a bit maniacally.

"No reason? You gonna challenge Harribel, then? I'd pay to see that. Aizen found what he was looking for, and that number on your back doesn't mean shit anymore!" His voice followed after her as she proceeded to her destination. "It's Tres Cifras or me, Nel! I'll see you on the battlefield!"

She closed her eyes briefly and sighed, one hand on the door handle. It had been years. There were new faces, there were new rules… and there were now four Espada forbidden to loose their Resurreccion beneath the dome of Las Noches for fear of the damage it would cause. Barragan had served Aizen Sosuke for as long as their lord had held Las Noches, but the rest of the Vasto Lords that she, Nnoitra, and the other Espada had been sent out to search for had been recruited in the years since Nnoitra's treacherous attack. A stronger Arrancar had claimed the number tattooed on her back, and unless she challenged another Espada for a lower position, she would join the Privarion Espada.

Nnoitra was the highest-ranked of the former Adjudas. She had no doubt of her ability to defeat the beast, but…

She missed the desert.

"It is still not a reason to fight," Nel whispered to the white stone in front of her, before pushing it open and joining the figures already inside, bowing to her lord in passing. "Aizen-sama. Please forgive my tardiness."

Starrk, the new Primera, was leaning lazily against the wall, a bearded man in the uniform of the Shinigami lying unconscious at his feet. A younger man lay tied up and ignored near Barragan. His brown eyes widened as Nel entered the room, and shock showed on the faces of the two girls at the base of Aizen's throne.

"I'm sure you had a good reason, Neliel," Aizen answered magnanimously. "Thank you for taking care of the children. With your Fraccion's experience in babysitting, I felt they would be best looked after in your quarters. Have the arrangements been made?"

Barragan snorted slightly at what could have been taken as a veiled insult. Neliel ignored him. "The alarms are in place, Aizen-sama. We will know instantly of any disturbance in the other palaces, and you will be alerted if we encounter difficulties." Starrk and Barragan also nodded in confirmation.

"Excellent. Neliel, do you have any further questions about your role at dawn?"

"No, Aizen-sama." No questions except why it had to be her, rather than another Espada, and why he had sought her out, when he had not cared in the years past; no questions besides the wistful ones from the child she had been, wondering why she couldn't go back to blissful ignorance and eternal tag. She pushed them away and approached the girls, who were perhaps two or three times the physical age of her own form a week ago. "I am Neliel. Please come with me, and stay close. These halls are not safe for unprotected humans."

Somewhat to her surprise, they willingly took her outstretched hands, with the darker-haired girl holding her left hand in a death grip and the light-haired girl the right, somewhat more gently. Starrk picked up his charge, and Barragan loosed the binding on the swarthy boy's legs so he could stand on his own. The boy gave a reassuring nod to the girls, who watched as he was pushed out of the room. Nel's party was the last to leave, and as soon as the huge doors closed behind them, the dark-haired girl blurted,

"You're Nel! Ichi-nii's hollow has a crush on you."

Neliel tu Odelschwank blinked. "Eh?"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

The Garganta ended on the street in front of the warehouse, and as Unohana and Isane looked around curiously, having only rarely been to the mortal world in recent years, Ichigo strode through the gaping hole in the descending door of the warehouse. He went down the familiar side path to the common room, and something relaxed inside as he realized it contained all eight of the reiatsu signatures that should have been there, plus an extra. The quiet conversations stopped as soon as he paused at the entrance to the room.

"Kurosaki… Ichigo?" Hirako Shinji asked, comparing the young man he was meeting for the first time to the images they had all watched over the past weeks. His outfit was the same as the one he had worn in the fight with Aizen on Sokyoku Hill after they had come back in time, as was the long chain on his sword, but his hair was as long as it had been when he first entered Resurreccion in his fight with the Cuarta Espada- and if that meant what Shinji suspected it meant, Hiyori was going to be _furious_ when she woke up. Any amusement he had at the thought died at the look in the boy's eyes.

"Shinji. I brought Unohana and Isane with me." Again, was the thought that flashed through all of their minds, and Ichigo realized that the only reason he'd thought to include the healers this time had been because Unohana had been so critical in keeping several of them alive in the battle above the Fake Karakura Town.

The de facto leader of the Vizards grimaced, but said, "Can't be helped, I suppose. We can use her."

As Unohana entered the room, Tessai, the extra presence Ichigo had sensed, moved from Hiyori's side with relief to allow the specialist room to work. The former Kido Corps captain went to his ex-lieutenants' side and removed the temporary spell that was keeping the unconscious man from bleeding out, while Isane took Kensei's place where he was performing basic first-aid at Lisa's side.

"What happened?"

"I guess you know about…" Shinji started to ask him, and then stopped the question, realizing how self-evident the answer was.

"We have already received the ransom demands," Unohana answered for them all. "Kurosaki-san for his family and Sado Yasutora. The exchange will be made at dawn."

Love closed his eyes. "Sorry, kid."

Ichigo shook his head. "I should have killed him before we came back in time. Sorry I dragged you into this."

He pushed the regrets down again. The only thing that mattered now was getting his family and Chad to safety. "How did they find you?"

"The hollow that killed your mother," Kensei answered. "Aizen made it into an Arrancar. Your old man went out to kill him. We figured Hachi could handle a siege if he gave away our position, but Aizen already knew how to break through Hachi's barriers."

"Grand Fisher… is he dead?"

A sharp jerk of Love's head made Ichigo close his eyes and take a deep breath, remembering the soul-deep fury he'd felt… how long ago was it now? Just over two months since June 17th? He couldn't even blame his father. "I'd have done the same thing."

"We still should have stopped him," Shinji said.

"I doubt you'd have been able to." Ichigo shook his head. Don't look back. "How did they get in?"

"The second Espada, the Vasto Lord that Gin called Barragan. He has some sort of power that accelerates decay. He dissolved the barrier, and Aizen came in alone."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

/_ The alarm sounded, and as Hachi called out that his barrier was falling they assembled in the large upper training area that the enemy was boring through. As the barrier fell, Hachi ended his attempts at defense and turned instead to attack, and as a brown-haired, white-clad figure was revealed by the hole quickly being eaten away it was instantly enveloped in the glowing golden chains of a Bakudo 63: Sajo Sabuku. Hiyori yelled in triumph and jumped in with a shout of "Chop cleanly, Kubikiri Orochi!" while calling her spiked mask onto her face._

_As her sword extended into a large cleaver with a saw-like blade, Chad yelled "No!"_

_Shinji froze. "Hiyori, get out of there!" _

_But it was too late, and on the downswing she was stopped mere feet from her ostensible target accompanied by Chad's despairing yell. They suddenly could see her spitted on the end of Kyoka Suigetsu, until Aizen gave a flick of his blade and let her slide off._

"_How nostalgic. It was not a wound I had caused the first time, of course, but it is quite fitting."_

_Rose snarled out, "Play, Kinshara!" and his zanpakuto extended into a long golden whip with a metallic flower at the end. Rather than sent it directly at Aizen's body, he swept the long length of it through the entire front of the warehouse in a split second, but could feel no impact._

"_El Directo!" Chad yelled, swinging his right arm and sending a stream of bright energy at the empty air above where Hiyori was lying. Catching on, Hachi followed suit with a wide-ranging Hado 88: __Hiryu Gekizoku Shinten Raiho__, but both blasts were deflected by a non-verbalized Bakudo 81: Danku. Rose's whip snaked around the barrier to strike at the man visible in the space where Chad had aimed, but his whip was caught effortlessly in by the figure of what, from the tug that pulled Rose directly towards him, was likely the real Aizen. A slash on the torso sent Rose plummeting down to land on Hiyori, who stirred and groaned. She opened her eyes to see the fight still waging above her._

"_Smash, Haguro Tonbo!" Lisa yelled, already masked and twirling the sword and scabbard of her weapon around her until it extended into an extremely long pole-arm with a weighted ball at the far end. _

"_Above you!" Chad yelled, as he sent another energy attack at the man that only he could see. Aizen batted away his strongest attack, the one he had spent the last three days ceaselessly training to master once his arm had evolved into its new form, as easily as Kyoraku Shunsui had done three weeks earlier. As Aizen flashed out of the path of the pole-arm swinging through the air to follow the path of the blast, Chad wondered despairingly if he would ever be able to keep his promise, or if Ichigo and his array of enemies had evolved too far beyond him for Chad to have any hope of watching Ichigo's back ever again- but Chad cut off the thought as Lisa fell from a sword slash across the torso, directly in front of him._

_He charged at the traitorous captain, swinging his strong right arm and beginning the charge for one more blast. He was reaching the limit of his power, and knew it, but no matter what the captain of the Eighth had told him there were things that were worth draining his life's force for. His fist was caught almost gently in Aizen's smaller hand, and Chad was suddenly flying backwards to collide against the wall with a grunt, his vision darkening._

_Shinji, seeing everyone but Hachi down, shunpoed in front of him while pulling his hand across his face. His echoing tones called out "Collapse, Sakanade" as his sword began spinning around a new circular addition to the hilt._

"_A cheap optical illusion, Hirako Shinji. The power of your sword cannot touch me."_

_Shinji's grin grew wider behind his mask, and he called out, "Ban-"_

_He was felled by a blow he could not see before he could finish. Hachi went down a second later, missing an arm and unconscious from a blow to the head._

_Aizen sighed, smoothing his slightly mussed hair, and glanced at where Chad was clambering to his feet, leaning on the wall for support. "Are you still awake, Yasutora Sado? It would be kinder to yourself to stay down."_

"_Aizen…"_

_He glanced in slight surprise to his left, where Hiyori was staggering to her feet._

"_Are you still moving, Sarugaki? How pathetic."_

"_Aizen…"_

_At the mindless repetition in her echoing tones, Aizen turned to look at her again, slightly more interested. _

"_Fascinating… that even a bungled Arrancar can attempt to achieve this…"_

"_AIZEN!" Sarugaki Hiyori lost what little control she had over the transformation, and threw back her head and roared as a white substance flowed out of the hole cut through her body. It flowed over her arms and down her torso to her legs, and when the transformation was complete her entire body had taken on the sharp spikes and elongated diamonds of her hollow's mask. Her front was of a similar size and stature to her Vizard form, except for the enlarged hands and feet and the growth of claws, but on her back she had a sharp forest of slightly curving spikes resembling a porcupine's quills. Her hair, formerly in pigtails, had shortened until it was barely visible under her mask._

_She charged at the brown-haired man with her sword in hand, and began swinging wildly at him. Aizen blocked each blow without changing expression until hollow-Hiyori backed off and began charging up a red cero. When she let it loose, having just enough sense or instinct to sweep it through the area where Aizen was standing rather than attempt to shoot it directly at him, Aizen flash-stepped to her side and aimed a single, swift strike at the horn of her mask._

_It shattered, and Hiyori's face was briefly visible before she collapsed once more. It soon became apparent that high-speed regeneration was not one of her powers, for the wounds that had driven her into a berserk state remained._

"… _but you still cannot challenge the man who conquered the real thing."_

_Chad had by this time made it to his feet and staggered in front of the door to the living quarters. There was no question in his mind who the man was after. He would keep his promise, even if it drained the life from his body. His arm, the _left_ arm, felt as though it were on fire as it finally reacted to the intensive training over the last weeks and the remnants of the hollow reiatsu in the room._

'What… now…_' but as he demanded the power from himself his soul responded, and a ball of liquid manifested over his left hand and flowed up his arm, coalescing to a white covering with a red stripe and red-tipped spike on the shoulder._

"_You cannot have them. You will not pass." Five glowing disks of energy formed at his fingertips, and as he closed the fist all of the energy inside of them was pushed into the punch he threw at Aizen._

_Aizen stopped the punch with a single finger on his fist, and smiled. "The Kurosaki twins, Sado Yasutora, are not the only hostages here."_

_Aizen's sword came towards his temple, deliberately slowly enough to see but far too fast for Chad to avoid. Aizen's smile was the last thing he saw before the world went dark, and he knew he had failed._/

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo, Unohana, and Isane emerged from the Garganta a short distance from the gates of the Fourth Division several hours after their abrupt departure. There were two shinigami in the uniform of the Onmitsukido's Reversal Counter Force flanking the entrance, and one of the messengers appeared in front of them in the seiza position while her companion disappeared.

"Kurosaki-dono, Yamamoto-soutaicho requests your presence at the First Division Barracks at your earliest convenience."

Ichigo grimaced as Unohana raised her brows slightly in surprise. "Are those the words the Captain-commander used?"

The woman hesitated. "… Fifth-seat Kobayashi may have paraphrased the Captain-commander's message before giving it to our squad, Unohana-taicho. He has been training with Kurosaki-dono for several days."

"A tactful man," the healer murmured, taking some small amusement where she could.

"Tell him I'll be there in a few minutes," Ichigo told the kneeling Onmitsukido, who nodded and shunpoed away. Ichigo considered getting the confrontation over with- he could have been at the First long before the messenger- but there was a more important conversation waiting inside the gates.

He strode towards the room he had shared with the other humans. The few shinigami in his path melted out of his way, sympathy on their faces. The rumor mill had obviously been working overtime in the last couple of hours. He was slightly surprised to find that Rukia had stayed with Orihime and Ishida, and that Renji had joined them. As he paused on the threshold, Orihime was the first to notice him.

"Kurosaki-kun! You're back!"

Rukia visibly relaxed as she stood up from her seat on Ichigo's bed, while Ishida glanced over without raising himself up from his determinedly casual lounging pose on the bunk above her. Renji nodded from the chair by the window.

"I let them know what happened. You OK?"

Ichigo ran a hand through his hair, and then stopped the gesture as he was reminded of its current length. "Everyone's alive. Aizen gave them the same wounds as last time. Hachi's lost his arm again- I told him you'd be willing to put it back when you're better, Inoue."

"Ah… when I healed Jidanbo-san I just reattached the arm, not…" Orihime ventured, slightly embarrassed.

"You can heal him." The certainty in his voice made her blush slightly and nod.

"And you, Ichigo?" Rukia would not let him avoid the question. He shrugged in reply.

"Gonna get them back. It'll be OK."

"So you're just going to let him kill you, Kurosaki, and hope he's been honest?" Ishida snapped. "_Have you lost your mind_?"

Ichigo crossed the room and sat heavily on the bed, rubbing his face with his hand. He felt… tired. Tired in a way that had nothing to do with physical exhaustion, tired in a way that made him wish he was still able to fall asleep. "He won't care about them once I'm there. Nel will make sure they're safe."

"A thin hope to give your life for, Ichigo." The dark-haired shinigami moved to his side and looked down at him in concern. "She has never met you, and Aizen is once again her master."

"I'd still trust her with their lives. She's a good person." He took a deep breath, gathering his resolve and pushing away the soul-deep worry that threatened to consume him, then looked up and met her gaze. "And I'm not going to let him win."

She blinked. Those eyes… those were strong eyes.

"I am my sword. Throwing it away isn't going to change that. Same with my mask. As soon as Nel's gone, he's dead. I just have to get you guys away with that key. That's all that matters." He hesitated. They'd have wanted to join him once, but that was months away. Now… "If you want to come, I mean."

"I wanted to talk with you about that," Renji started. "You know I'm with you, but… well, you've got three people left, and Ikkaku and Iba have already pulled me aside, and I'm pretty sure Matsumoto will want to come-" and he cut off with a hiss as Rukia kicked his shin.

"We will be there if you want us there, Kurosaki-kun." Orihime's voice was quiet, but full of things unsaid, and Ichigo glanced at her in slight surprise.

"My powers are well on the way to recovery," Rukia added, glaring at Renji.

"Not completely, and you're not a lieutenant-" the redhead began to respond.

"I have a few devices at my apartment that I would like to arrange to be picked up," Ishida interjected. "I will not be helpless."

"You're still not able to use your own power!" Renji snapped. "He needs fighters!"

"Aizen won't start a fight until he thinks I've sealed my power, and you'll be gone by then. There isn't anyone better." Ichigo's voice was unrelenting. "And anyway, Aizen knows who's coming. I doubt they'll let anyone else into the Senkaimon. If they don't come, it'll just be you."

Renji sighed, but nodded in resignation. Ichigo stood up to leave the room, saying, "I've gotta go see Jii-san. And, guys… thanks."

He was gone in a long stride, leaving silence behind him. Finally, Renji shrugged and stood up. "I'll let the guys know he doesn't think he'll need them. 'Least he's not just gonna lie down and die."

"He didn't say that, Abarai-kun," Orihime said just as quietly as before, as she stood up and walked to the hallway to gaze in the direction Ichigo had dissapeared. "He just said he would defeat Aizen."

"Same thing."

The auburn-haired girl shook her head and smiled tremulously. "If he was sure he would live… I don't think he would have cared who was with him."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Isshin groaned as he regained consciousness. He hadn't had a hangover this bad since that one night after Masaki died…

Masaki.

Grand Fisher.

_Aizen_.

_What had he done?_

"You're awake! Hey, Starrk, wake up!" A prepubescent girl dressed in white, skin-tight briefs and a vest scampered from his side and jumped on the stomach of a man lounging on a pile of cushions, a brown-haired Arrancar with a bone-jaw mask fragment hanging from his throat like a necklace. The man stirred out of his doze with a grunt and glanced over at the former Captain.

"You up, then?"

"Where are Karin and Yuzu?" Isshin staggered to his feet, his hand groping vainly for the sword that should have been at his side. _"Where are they?"_

The Arrancar that the girl called Starrk, whom Isshin vaguely recognized as the man from Ichigo's memories that Gin had identified as the Primera Espada, stretched lazily. "Relax. They're with the new girl, Odelschwank. Aizen-sama said to make sure they're unharmed for the exchange."

"Odelschwank?" Did he mean Nel? Isshin began to relax as he remembered Ichigo's description of her.

/_ "She's not my enemy. Never will be._"/

They were in Hueco Mundo, but if he could trust his son's judgment the girls were as safe as they could possibly be under the circumstances. The only question was why Aizen would bother… and then his mind caught up with his ears.

"Exchange?" There was no question about what Aizen would want. His fault, all his fault- Aizen had Karin and Yuzu, and if it had just been him Ichigo might have listened to reason. It should have just been him- he'd thought he'd known the risks, and had decided they were worth it to free the soul of his wife, and Ichigo would have understood and let him go, but this…

His fault.

"It's already been arranged. You've been separated in case someone tries a rescue attempt. The kid Ulquiorra showed us kind of seems like the type."

"Arranged?" He couldn't seem to do more than parrot the other man's words. He would have to work on that, once he had escaped. Isshin prepared to shunpo directly at the Espada, hoping to at least stun him for long enough to get out the door- but his power did not come to his call. His lips tightened as he reached up to touch the collar at his neck, and the Arrancar correctly interpreted the gesture.

"It'd be a pain if I had to tie you up, and you won't be able to escape without the alarms going off. And if they do, one of the others will die," he informed Isshin, still insultingly relaxed. "Are you going to cause any problems?"

"I seem to be unarmed and powerless. What problems could I cause?" Despite his words, Isshin's eyes did not stop scanning his surroundings, looking for the door and the controls to the aforementioned alarms.

"Not much, probably. Of course, that's what Yammy thought about your kid. Did he get that from your side of the family?"

Isshin's frown deepened. "What?"

The girl chimed in enthusiastically. "I heard he took Yammy out in one hit! Just- fwoosh!" and she made a slicing gesture with one hand, "and he was dead! Just like that!"

Isshin got the impression that the Espada Diez had not been particularly popular. "I hope you're not expecting condolences."

Starrk shrugged, unconcerned. "There's nothing to be done about it."

"What happened?" Since the Arrancar seemed to be willing to chat…

"A couple of the others went to tell your kid you'd been taken. He thought you were dead at first. He killed Yammy, and came pretty close to killing Ulquiorra. I'm glad we won't need to fight him for real."

If he had killed an Espada in a single blow… "Could they sense his reiatsu?"

"Ulquiorra said not. It's a bit odd, since Harribel didn't have any problem." Starrk scratched his chin contemplatively. "That's a pretty useful trick. How does he do it?"

Isshin didn't answer. If he had reversed the splitting of his soul, Ichigo must have been ready to come to Hueco Mundo. A single hour's delay of Aizen's attack, and it would all have been finished.

"If I've got to stay awake to watch you, we might as well chat," his guard said dryly. "Unless you don't want to know anything about what what will happen at dawn?"

"What do you mean?" Isshin asked.

"There is no day in Hueco Mundo, but the lights in Las Noches are set to the sleep schedule of Soul Society. The exchange will be made when your sun rises, and Aizen-sama's gone through some pretty elaborate preparations to make sure that your boy doesn't attack him before his power is sealed. I don't mind talking about them, and we've got a few hours to kill."

Isshin thought about it. It was unlikely he would be able to give away anything about Ichigo's powers that Aizen had not already inferred, and at the moment he needed every scrap of information he could get. "… it is nothing that you can duplicate. He's just too powerful for anyone to sense. He cannot affect or be affected by anyone at our level of power unless he deliberately lets himself be."

"Oh? Too bad." Starrk sighed. "Is that why Harribel could sense him, then?"

"An answer for an answer, Espada."

"Fair enough. You, your daughters, and the other guy will be in a sealed container. Odelschwank will choose where to hide it. When your son surrenders, he'll seal his power, and when he does she will have access to the key that will release you. You've gotta hope that she'll actually take you back to the human world, of course, but she doesn't seem like the type to let you suffocate."

"What about Ichigo?"

Starrk just tilted his head slightly to the side, and Isshin grimaced before taking his turn.

"Your friend was able sense Ichigo because he had limited his power. He split his soul into three pieces. If …" and Isshin trailed off as he saw that the information had gotten more of a reaction from the laconic Arrancar than anything yet in the conversation. Starrk had jerked up, and the restless child near him had stilled completely.

"He… split his soul?" the brown-haired man repeated carefully, and Isshin realized that he had the other man's full attention for the first time since he had woken. What the hell had he said?

"Three pieces, huh?" the girl asked. A wide smile spread across her face. "Wow, he must be really strong! Are any of them girls?"

Isshin blinked in surprise. "No… one is a boy with a similar appearance to Ichigo, but a different coloration. The last … the last one is a man my age."

"So he split his soul to limit his power, to be able to interact with the people around him, and when he comes together again, his power is so great that his friends are not affected…" The Primera trailed off, looking into the distance, before concluding, "… he's lucky."

"He nearly died because he could not be touched by the healers," Isshin informed him, still not understanding why the Espada cared.

"There are worse things, Kurosaki Isshin." Starrk shook his head slightly, before saying, "And I'm a poor host. I am Coyote Starrk, and this is Lilynette Gingerbuck."

The newly named Lilynette waved cheerfully. "Hi!"

Isshin couldn't exactly say it was a pleasure to meet them. "By my count, you owe me several answers, Coyote Starrk."

He nodded. "Aizen's got it in for your kid. If he has any plans for attacking Soul Society after he's dead, he hasn't shared them, but he's pretty confident that with him dead we've won."

"He underestimates us, and he underestimates Ichigo. My son will not simply lie down and die."

"I almost hope you are correct," the strongest Espada said quietly. "If he is as strong as you say, it would be a terrible waste."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Yamamoto rose from his desk as the carefully-positioned lamp in the hallway threw a shadow on the sliding door. There was no other trace of the presence of the person on the far side of the doorway. As the shadow raised its hand to knock, Yamamoto called out, "Enter, Kurosaki."

The figure paused in surprise, then pushed open the paper door. "You wanted to see me, Jii-san?"

"Can you guess what this discussion will be about, Kurosaki Ichigo?"

Ichigo shrugged. "I think I've got an idea. And if I'm right, this is gonna be a short talk."

Yamamoto's eyes did not open from their typical squint. "Personal is not the same as important. It is the wrong choice."

"It's the only choice. I cannot lose the things that are precious to me. I will protect them, even if it costs me my life."

Yamamoto grunted, unsurprised. "And even if it costs the rest of the dimensions theirs?"

There was no hesitation in Ichigo's amber eyes. "Even then. For my sisters, I'd open the gates of Hell itself."

"You followed Inoue Orihime against my direct orders, when you were the only fighter in the worlds capable of seeing through Aizen's illusions, and forced my future self to divide the forces to retrieve you. Have you learned _nothing_, boy?"

Ichigo stiffened, one hand falling to the hilt of his sword. He had never given any shinigami of this timeline that information. In the wake of the Espada's visit he had forgotten Ishida's revelation about the invasion of his privacy, and now with the reminder almost, _almost_, lashed out at the man who had undoubtedly given the order, and who might even be capable of surviving his anger- but he controlled the impulse. It hardly mattered anymore. He opened his hand. "I didn't know that, actually. Unohana-san told me about his sword on the way back to Karakura."

Yamamoto's voice was scathing. "Clearly it would not have made a difference."

"No. It wouldn't have." They stared at each other for a long moment, and Ichigo was the first to look away. "I won't put them in danger, but as soon as Nel and the others are gone I'm going to attack."

"Weaponless and powerless?"

"Tensa Zangetsu is a part of me. Even if I throw them away, they will always be in my soul." He had to remember that, this time around. "And I kind of doubt that anything he's got will affect my reiatsu if I don't want it to. If I stop letting them feel my reiatsu, the collar probably can't work on me."

"And so your plan is to rely on the incompetence of an intelligent enemy?" Yamamoto asked, eyebrows raised. "The only truly detrimental mistake he made in his battles, Kurosaki, was allowing you to live, and he is clearly seeking to rectify that."

"…no. It'll be nice if that happens, but no." Sacrifices, choices, deciding who it was worth to save rather than trying to save everyone he could… the old teacher had taught better than he knew. "I have an attack Aizen doesn't know about. I didn't use it in the last fight. I didn't think I needed to. As long as Tensa Zangetsu is a part of me, I can become a part of Tensa Zangetsu. Nothing but splitting my soul again will change that, and there is no seal in this world or any other that could contain Mugetsu. Aizen will be destroyed."

Yamamoto sighed, acknowledging the futility of the argument. Unfortunately, he had expected little else. "I will hope for your victory, but will plan for your defeat. We have never intended to rely solely upon you. In this timeline, you were the best hope, but not the last."

That was news to him. "What will you do?"

"There are several contingency plans, each with multiple redundancies in the hopes that one will work. You are not the only one with techniques too destructive to be used casually, Kurosaki. All the fires of the earth will come to my call. I have not done so in almost two thousand years, and the surrounding human towns remain buried under ash to this day."

Ichigo swallowed. "Oh."

"I had hoped…" Yamamoto stopped himself. There was little point now. "Go, boy. If you have placed the whole of the world on a scale, and found that it was outweighed by four lives, then go, and hope that you live to become wiser."

"That's not a type of wisdom I want." Ichigo turned and walked away, but paused on the threshold of the room. "How long has it been since you've had some_one_ worth dying for?"

The question floated on the air as the orange-haired teenager disappeared. Yamamoto shook his head slightly. "Longer than you can imagine, boy, and I am a better commander for it."

He finished the preparations for the next day and settled into the pose for Jinzen to await the dawn. The next day, they would see.

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Ishida Uryuu waited impatiently as the closing gates of the Senkaimon hid Yoruichi from view. She was on her way to retrieve the Ginto tubes currently stored in his apartment. If she hurried, any that were not fully charged with reishi would have time to fill to capacity in the high-spirit-particle environment of Soul Society. At the sound of footsteps, he glanced to the right, and his eyes widened slightly.

"Korutsuchi Nemu." He had seen her at the meetings, but they had not truly interacted since she had saved his life from her father's poison in gratitude for his life.

"Ishida Uryuu, last of the Quincy. Are the rumors true, that you have lost your abilities?" The vice-captain's voice was quiet and bluntly emotionless, without any hesitation to touch on a sensitive subject. Ishida pushed his glasses up his nose and ignored the question.

"Do you want power?"

His lips tightened. "I… I don't want this to end without doing anything."

"Understood." She inclined her head slightly. "I will lend you my power."

The archer looked at her sharply. "What did you say?"

Nemu reached inside her shihakusho and brought out a grey manacle with a small Quincy cross hanging from the top.

Ishida stiffened, eyes wide. Well, now he knew how he'd gotten it in the future. "This is…"

"I have heard that this is a battle accessory passed down to the top Quincys hundreds of years ago. Our technology department has had custody over it for research. It has the ability to control reishi. If you are a true Quincy, then I am sure it will help you."

Ishida took the Quincy Bangle almost reverently, and placed it on his wrist without hesitation. Lines of glowing blue light surrounded him briefly, and his outfit, already in the traditional white, gained blue edgings. He raised his arms in the motions that were as habitual and as necessary to his existence as breathing. A ball of the same familiar blue formed between his hands and funneled itself into its customary forms. _'Grasping the bow lightly, pull it straight back and release with the heart.'_

The arrow, fueled by the spirit particles of Soul Society, flared blindingly bright as he loosed it into the air. It travelled straight up until it impacted the dome above the Seireitei. Ishida closed his eyes and bowed his head, letting the afterimages fade. His voice was quiet when he finally spoke. "Does your captain know about this?"

She turned and began to leave. It was answer enough.

"Why?"

She paused. "It is the correct decision."

"I don't understand."

"I, too, do not wish this to end without doing anything." She began walking away again. "Good luck, Ishida Uryuu."

"Thank you," he whispered after her. He stood silently for a time before stirring himself and going to search for a suitable target. He had some practicing to do, and very little time left to do it in.

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As Ichigo approached the gates of the Fourth Division, he paused, feeling a familiar reiatsu.

"Yo."

"Kenpachi." Ichigo glanced to his right, where the captain of the Eleventh was leaning against the wall of a nearby building.

"Hi, Icchi!" Yachiru waved at him from Kenpachi's shoulder.

"Is he gone for good, then?"

'He'? Ichigo blanked out, and then realized who Kenpachi must be talking about. He was probably the only person in Soul Society more concerned about the loss of Ichigo's hollow than about the encounter at dawn. "I don't know. It'll depend on how this goes."

Kenpachi nodded. "I liked him. He knew what a fight is supposed to be."

Ichigo looked at him warily, not quite sure how to deal with the man when he wasn't trying to attack either Ichigo or the enemy of the day. Zaraki seemed calm, almost contemplative. Memories tickled at the edges of his thoughts, in vague dreams and foggy glimpses of a half-dozen fights over the last two weeks, and Ichigo suddenly wished he'd actually watched one rather than using it as a convenient way to keep his hollow occupied and Zaraki off his back.

"He liked you. If he liked anyone, he liked you." Ichigo paused, but then bit the bullet and asked, "Why aren't you trying to fight me?"

"Wouldn't be much point, would there?" His familiar grin grew across his face. "You've gotten too strong, and 's a pain having to fight weaklings all the time. I've gotta get stronger. It's good to have a reason."

Ichigo blinked, not really having expected that much restraint on the part of the other man.

"You'd better come back to fight me, Ichigo. It'd be a fuckin' stupid way to die."

No, he wouldn't take that any more- not from Kenpachi. "Then tell me you wouldn't do the same thing in my position."

The older man snorted while Yachiru shrieked in laughter at the thought. "No one'd try. The brat can take care of herself."

Ichigo shook his head, turning back to the gates of the enclosure. He would do what he had to do. He'd given them all the information he had, even if it hadn't been enough. They would be prepared if he failed, and he'd made all the changes he could…

…no, he hadn't, had he? There was one left, one more advantage he could give the shinigami that Aizen wouldn't know about.

"Did you say you wanted to become stronger?"

"Huh? Yeah, if I mmph-" and at the affirmation Ichigo's gloved right hand was suddenly in his face, pushing him through the air. Yachiru's delighted scream trailed after them as she held onto Kenpachi's clothing with a death-grip. They traveled the length of the Seireitei in seconds, and Ichigo tossed him down onto the ground of Sokyoku Hill as the little girl finally leapt free.

"What the fuck was that for?" the spike-haired man snapped, pulling himself out of the crater. The new hole fit the landscape perfectly; in the fights since Rukia's attempted execution, the once-smooth ground of the Execution Hill had been cracked and pitted multiple times.

Ichigo ignored him, and instead searched for the new presence in his soul. He _pulled_, and Muramasa appeared next to him, with his hair damp, windblown and considerably wilder than usual.

"How's the weather?"

"… I am capable of voluntary manifestation under my own power. The command is 'Yukojochu'. It is a considerably less disorienting process."

Ichigo shrugged. "Sure. Since you're out anyway, though…" and he nodded at Kenpachi. As he'd suspected, Muramasa had been following the events in the outer world closely, and needed no further prompting. A flare of bright violet light emerged from his eyes, and the unnamed sword hanging from Kenpachi's hip began glowing a similar shade before a dark mist streamed out of the sheath and began to coalesce in front of Kenpachi.

"That was different," Ichigo remarked, comparing it to Muramasa's manifestation of Ichigo's own sword.

"Some zanpakuto require more effort than others. This one was not eager to remain." Apparently deciding to use it as a teaching opportunity, Muramasa added, "The manifested spirits from shinigami less strong than Kenpachi or your friends in the future would be humanoid shadows, rather than solid figures with distinct personalities."

As he was speaking, the dark mist formed into a standing figure as tall as Kenpachi. The first distinct features that formed were the glowing red eyes and the pitted, cracked sword in his hand. His skin became a black so dark it had purple highlights, and the manifesting body was lean and muscular, with sharp features and pointed ears. He was wearing a loose hakama and set of arm bracers, all of which were the same color as his cropped hair and razorlike nails, a red the color of fresh blood. His torso and feet were bare.

"Is that Ken-chan's sword?" Yachiru asked, eyes wide, as she joined Ichigo and Muramasa. Ichigo grabbed her arm and flashed to the top of the broken Sokyoku stand, with his new zanpakuto following them an instant later. Below them, Kenpachi took off his eyepatch, accompanied by a flare of golden power, and then began removing the bells on his hair without taking his eyes off the now-fully-manifested spirit of his zanpakuto.

"Zaraki Kenpachi…" the figure hissed, lips pulled back to reveal a set of sharp fangs.

"What's your name?" the captain asked, pulling the last, hardest-to-reach bell off of its spike. The question caused the newcomer to charge his erstwhile wielder in a rage, and their identical corroded swords crossed for the first time. Kenpachi grunted and braced against the blow with one hand on his sword's hilt before straining up and shoving the spirit back several paces.

Without waiting for him to regroup, Kenpachi charged and began raining down blows, causing showers of sparks as each strike was met by the other fighter's sword. His face as they drove each other back and forth across the plateau was more serious than Ichigo had ever seen it in a battle, without his usual psychotic grin. As their swords caught against each other once again, though, the unnamed spirit raised his left hand and sent a slash aimed across Kenpachi's eyes. He disengaged and twisted backwards gracefully, but the claws still caught him in a light, glancing blow across the cheekbones. The spirit instantly jumped back.

"First blood." His voice was low and hoarse, as though unaccustomed to use.

"It'd be pretty pathetic if you couldn't cut me," Zaraki responded, wiping his cheek. His opponent bared his teeth in a feral smile that had an eerie resemblance to Kenpachi's own, and wiped his nails on the blade of his sword.

"As long as your blood is on this sword, Zaraki Kenpachi, your wounds will not stop bleeding." He charged again twice as forcefully, and the battle was resumed. The next hit, several blows later, was Kenpachi's, and the spirit once again retreated and wiped the blood from the shallow cut to his bare shoulder onto the blade. The cut instantly stopped bleeding, though it did not otherwise heal.

"Second blood, if we're counting," Zaraki said. "You gonna get serious, or will this be a complete waste of my time?"

The spirit responded by flaring his battle aura, which formed a crimson aura in response to Kenpachi's own golden power, and they joined in combat once again, and this time they did not stop fighting. Although they both quickly gained several more wounds, Kenpachi, unusually, was the more controlled of the two, and spent more time blocking the increasingly wild blows from the spirit of his blade than he did on attack.

Yachiru had a small frown on her face. "Ken-chan's not having much fun."

"Good," Ichigo and Muramasa responded in unison. They exchanged startled glances.

"He's fighting a strong opponent, and he's going all out! Why isn't he happy?"

Muramasa looked down at her. "It is shameful that this fight is necessary. His opponent is half-mad with the pain of his existence. Your captain should not be pleased it is occurring."

They appeared to be equally matched. Kenpachi fought exclusively with the blade in his hand and appeared to be slightly physically stronger than the spirit of his sword; the unnamed zanpakuto spirit used the edged nails on his fingers and feet to their full advantage and had the slight edge in speed. They had both taken a set of minor and semi-serious wounds on their torso, arms, and face, and true to the spirit's word, no wound of Kenpachi's, not even the shallowest scratches, had stopped bleeding. Conversely, none of the wounds the zanpakuto had taken had started.

Finally, the sword of the manifested spirit slipped past Kenpachi's guard and gave him a deep cut through the soft part of his stomach. Kenpachi staggered with a grunt, then recovered and stabbed upwards, sending his blade through the spirit of his sword until it was emerged through his lower back.

The sword grabbed Kenpachi's hand and bent over with a strangled gasp. He gave a dry cough that, if not for his power, probably would have been wet with blood. They stayed that way for a frozen second, the spirit's blood-colored nails causing deep gouges in Kenpachi's wrist, before he pushed Kenpachi's hand away, forcing the sword out of his body with it. The dark man jumped back to the far end of the Execution Hill, and stood bent over for a few breaths, gasping with the pain.

"What're you waiting for?" Zaraki asked, eyes narrowed and head tilted. "You might not be bleeding, but if I hit a fatal spot I'm betting you'll die anyway, and you're not even aiming for the vitals. I thought you'd want to kill me."

The zanpakuto spirit gave a strangled laugh, and then straightened up, facing his wielder. "Not aiming for the vitals? I have no need to. You are already dead, Zaraki Kenpachi, and have not realized it yet."

"You keep calling me by my name, sword, and haven't given me your own even though you say you want to kill me. It's rude."

The redheaded man bared his teeth again. "Far too little, far too late. Die, Zaraki Kenpachi. Die knowing you were killed by the power you have no use for."

He raised his sword and passed his hand over the blade once again, smearing Kenpachi's blood on it a final time and heedless of the bloodless wound it caused to his own hand.

"Final blood. Ryōchi: Death by a Thousand Cuts."

Nothing appeared to happen for a long moment, and Zaraki shrugged and raised his sword again, preparing to resume the fight, but froze as blood began to drip down his face from the original tiny scratch. He reached up to touch it, and as he did the second wound he'd taken, a glancing blow to the right arm, began to bleed much faster than it had been. One by one, the constant flow of blood from each injury increased tenfold, until his skin was covered in a sheet of flowing liquid and his white captain's haori had been completely re-dyed.

Far above them, Ichigo stiffened and began to step forward, but was stopped by Muramasa's hand on his bare right arm. Yachiru, on his other side, tugged on his black bankai coat. "Ken-chan wouldn't want you to help. He'll start having fun soon."

"Death comes within minutes." The zanpakuto watched his wielder pitilessly as the captain of the Eleventh fell to his knees. "The pain will end soon."

"Heh. Pain? Who the fuck cares about pain?" Zaraki looked up, and his typical grin finally began to spread across his face. Seeing it, Yachiru's own lips tilted up in pleasure.

"Death… pain… that's just the cost of having fun!" He was breathing heavily, but continued speaking anyway. Despite the large and ever-growing pool of blood surrounding him, the dark-haired man dragged himself to his feet using his jagged sword, then took a traditional kendo stance, both hands on his blade for the first time in the fight. "But I can't die now. I've got… too much to live for. I need… to become stronger!"

His golden aura flared, and the ghostly image of a skull appeared behind him. The zanpakuto spirit's crimson aura flared in response, with a similar howling visage appearing behind him. "_Stronger_? What do I care about your strength, Zaraki Kenpachi? _I want the pain to end!"_

The last words were nearly a scream, and he charged his wielder, sword and claws outstretched. Zaraki ran to meet him, and they collided in an explosion of light and power that made the three observers shield their eyes and turn slightly away.

When the afterimages cleared, Yachiru hopped down, heedless of the hundred-foot fall, and was quickly followed by her two companions. The captain and the zanpakuto stood, nearly touching, swords buried deep in flesh.

"I'm sorry," Zaraki said quietly. The blade in his hand had pierced directly through the spirit's heart, but no-one thought that was what he was apologizing for.

The dark-skinned man coughed up a mouthful of blood. His own, identical sword was buried hilt-deep in Kenpachi's stomach, and on his body the many wounds he had taken were finally beginning to bleed. "I know."

Kenpachi removed his blade, letting the other stay in his stomach, and his zanpakuto fell to his knees, one clawed hand grasping the wound in his chest. He raised his crimson eyes to meet his wielder's.

"My name is Shakushi."

His body dissolved, and as it did the blades in Zaraki's hand and stomach disappeared. Where the zanpakuto spirit had been lay a sword, almost identical to the one Zaraki had held, but with a blade that was flawless rather than chipped and worn-down. The captain knelt down to pick it up.

" 'Red Death'*, huh?. It's a good name. Pleased to meet you."

He sheathed the sword, and then attempted to stand. He didn't quite make it to his feet, and keeled over gently, completely unconscious.

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Chad glanced at the window, where the artificial moon of Las Noches was beginning to set. He was still tied up, and Barragan Luisenbarn and three of his fraccion were settled around the room, with Ggio Vega monitoring the other three alarm stations.

Chad went back to staring at Barragan. It had been a long night, but at the same time, far too short.

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Taking Kenpachi's collapse as her cue, Yachiru ran over to Ichigo and hugged him around the legs. "Thanks, Icchi! You're a good friend!"

She hoisted her surrogate father over her shoulders despite the immense disparity in their sizes, and turned back to the two figures with a cheerful smile. "We're gonna get stronger so Ken-chan can fight you again, so don't die, OK? And bring hollow-chan back with you! Bye-bye, tapeworm-guy!"

As she sped off, Ichigo turned to Muramasa, who appeared slightly bemused by the new nickname. "Thanks."

"It was a pleasure," the spirit answered. "I saw your memories of your fight. Their bond was a travesty."

"The old man thought so too." Ichigo sighed. "You've been paying attention to the rest of it too, I guess?"

Muramasa nodded. "I am sorry."

"You know what I might have to do, then?" At the second nod, Ichigo continued, "If we hurry, I can make it to Karakura in time to find Tatsuki. When I tell her its life or death, she won't ask too many questions. You'll be OK with her."

Muramasa's deep voice was neutral as he asked, "Do I get a say in the matter?"

"If you want one of the others, sure, although I really think you'd do best with Tatsuki. It looked like eating hollows was going to kill you before much longer."

"I have paid particular attention to your memories of the past few weeks. When would you have gone to Hueco Mundo, Ichigo, if you had not decided to search for me?"

A day ago, hours before Aizen made his move. At Ichigo's silence, Muramasa added, "It must have occurred to you."

Ichigo's hands drew involuntarily into fists. It had, yes, and the part of him that had screamed at him to cut the bond between them was all too eager to blame the rouge spirit for it. Despite that, he said, "It was my choice. You didn't have anything to do with it."

"It would be a poor repayment to abandon you to the results of a situation indirectly of my making," Muramasa replied. His eyes were narrowed and he was studying Ichigo carefully, looking for something Ichigo couldn't understand.

"This isn't exactly what you signed on for," Ichigo snapped back. "If I use Mugetsu, I won't be a shinigami anymore. All of my power will be destroyed. I won't be able to hear you. That's what you're looking for, right?"

"It would not be for very long."

Ichigo froze. Shit. "What?"

"As I understand the process, when you use the Final Getsuga Tensho, you expel all of your power in one final, cataclysmic blast, after which you become a normal human. Is that correct?"

"Yeah, so you understand why…"

"A normal human, in the Dangai Precipice World." Muramasa's voice was dry.

Dammit. That was why he hadn't described the consequences of using Mugetsu to Yamamoto. "I didn't use it the first time because I didn't want to kill them. I didn't want to take anyone but Aizen with me. Just… just cut the bond, OK?"

Muramasa seemed to find whatever he was looking for, and a small smile touched his lips as he raised his hand and summoned his sword. With the flat of the blade, he raised the newly-visible dark-red spirit ribbon that bound them together, in an echo of the position they had been in just a few short hours ago, and Ichigo relaxed as the auburn-haired spirit looked at it contemplatively.

"The most difficult part of causing a Zanpakuto to leave a shinigami is not dissolving the bond between them. It is causing them to want to leave. I can call on their instincts, I can cause them to exaggerate their grievances, I can even confuse them enough to forget their wielder entirely, but until the spirit chooses to leave I cannot break the bond."

"So?"

The slight smile widened. "You ask me to leave, but you are not attempting to cut the ribbon yourself. Are you still able to do so? You can no longer hear the voice of your partner… do you want to die alone, Kurosaki Ichigo?"

Ichigo's permanent scowl deepened even further. "If I die, I won't die as a shinigami. _I won't be able to hear you_. There's no _point_ in you dying with me."

"And yet, in a future that never happened, you stayed with me when I lay dying. Allow me to return the favor."

"_I'm trying to save you!_"

"I rather think, Kurosaki ichigo, that you already have." Muramasa's hand twisted and jerked, making the same cutting motion that had parted him from Koga half a day before. The sword passed through the ribbon without parting it, and the ribbon disappeared, intact.

"… idiot." Ichigo's shoulders slumped, and he sighed in defeat. Finally, he muttered, "…thank you."

"Is there now any part of you that hates me?"

He didn't even have to search his soul. "No."

"Then I am rewarded." The whisper lingered on the wind of the plateau as his body began fading, and Ichigo chose not to keep him in the outer world. He faced the east, where the dark night was just beginning to lighten.

Dawn was coming.

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*Ryōchi" (凌遲) : the Japanese translation for the name of the Chinese torture 'slow slicing'. According to the Wiki, it's much more gruesome than I'm using here.

* Shakushi (赤死) : Red Death.

Name suggestions and the accompanying kanji were once again provided by Reikson, who also suggested the modified name for Yamamoto's Bankai. Thank you!

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**A/N :**

Please give a warm welcome to Shakushi, the first and only original character of the fic. (Unless you count Yoyu Uchigami and a couple of shinigami mooks, which I don't because I never gave them personalities.) I cannot draw, but character art (and, really, story art in general) is eagerly solicited; feel free to PM me if you need a better description than the one I gave in the chapter.

In case the historical reference was too vague, and I'm pretty sure it was, I blamed Yamamoto for the burial of Pompeii by Vesuvius. I'd hoped to work in a better description of the ability I'm describing earlier in the fic, but decided when editing chapter 13 that the older captains just wouldn't go around talking about their most powerful techniques. In canon, we *still* don't know what the bankai of any of those four captains are. Basically, I've got this Bankai attack envisioned as a version of Hitsugaya's Tenso Jurin, the 'all the water in the atmosphere is at my command' attack, reprised in fire/earth/lava form.

The final chapter will be up in two weeks, sometime on the weekend. The epilogue will be up on Saturday July 30, since I'm supposed to leave on a business trip the next day. I'm determined to get this fic finished this month.

Although I have several teaser-worthy lines written for the next chapter, all of them give away more than I want them to. So, no teaser again.


	17. Chapter 16 On Death Ground

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**Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

**Spoiler Alert**: As usual, the manga/anime up through the Deicide arc.

**Warnings:** As usual, bad language. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

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_On difficult ground, press on._

_On surrounded ground, strategize._

_On death ground, fight._

_- Sun Tzu, The Art of War, chapter 11: Formation_

_If you surround an enemy, leave an outlet; do not press an enemy that is cornered._

_- Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter 7: Armed Struggle_

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Ulquiorra stopped at the hallway containing the entrance to the recently-reoccupied quarters of the former Espada Tres, with a coin and a sword held in his left hand.

"You've come to see them off, then? Well, ain't you a gentleman."

Ulquiorra glanced over at the tallest Espada, saying "The hostages are to remain unharmed, and Neliel tu Odelshwank has her own assignment today. If you attempt to challenge her, Aizen-sama will be most displeased."

Nnoitra Gilga sneered. It was a gesture his face was uniquely suited to making. "We should've just killed the human as soon as Aizen-sama knew he was alive. This setup is bullshit."

"It is the wisest course of action. The moment the offer was made, Aizen-sama had caught him in a psychological cage. Kurosaki agreed to surrender of his own free will in exchange for the safety of his family, and all of his most powerful allies witnessed him do so. His closest friends will also accompany him. He will trust them to see to the hostages' safety, and he was given twelve hours to come to terms with his fate."

"You call that a '_cage_'?"

"Do not press an enemy that is cornered. Humans are capable of desperate actions when provoked." Despite himself, Ulquiorra's right hand drifted to his throat. "A direct attack would have been unwise, and insisting that the exchange be made immediately would have been equally likely to cause the human to react unpredictably. By allowing Kurosaki Ichigo the time to plan and by giving him the emotional comfort of having his friends retrieve his family, Aizen-sama has ensured that he will comply with instructions rather than attempt to attack on his own. By making it clear what he valued more, Kurosaki may have also driven a wedge between himself and the shinigami, and it will only be exacerbated by his continued determination to follow his own path throughout the night."

"A twisted plan. As expected of Aizen-sama, I guess."

"Twisted? Perhaps. To our lord, it is child's play. Kurosaki Ichigo will be at a known place at a known time; that is all that is required for Aizen-sama's victory."

Nnoitra shrugged. "Still, though, this exchange is ridiculous. Aizen-sama nearly killed him when they came back in time. Funny that he can't do that again."

Ulquiorra looked at the objects in his hand. The only thing they knew of that fight was that the human could have died from the wounds he had taken, and the Espada were well aware that their lord had merely been healed of a pair of cuts to the chest. After seeing the human himself, however, he suspected that there had been more to that fight than the ruler of Hueco Mundo had told them.

"Aizen-sama knows the course of action to take."

/"_The rest of you died. Aizen didn't care, and didn't stop it. Every shinigami but Gin and Tosen survived."_/

Ulquiorra had not included the final part of the memory when he delivered his report. It would have only begun unsubstantiated rumors.

"I will be escorting the human children and Odelschwank to the enclosure personally. If you attempt to waylay them, I will be your opponent."

Ulquiorra proceeded towards the entrance as Nnoitra snarled and stalked away. Human children would likely be less capable of lying than the older members of their species. It would be prudent to use his assignment to ascertain the truth of the human's words.

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The girls had been exhausted, emotionally and physically, but had slept only fitfully throughout the night. When one twin woke up, the other quickly did as well, and they would look simultaneously towards the moon visible through the window before dozing off again for a few short minutes despite themselves.

Now, the artificial moon was finally setting, and the eastern end of the dome over Las Noches was beginning to lighten. Kurosaki Yuzu finally began to cry, in large silent tears, while her dry-eyed sister held her and Pesche futilely tried to cheer her up with a series of cartwheels.

It was time. Time for her to imprison two little girls in an air-tight cage, so that they could wait for the brother they adored to sacrifice his life to save them.

She couldn't do this.

Aizen-sama had returned to her the reason and intelligence she had lost when she became a hollow, and had done so not once, but twice. However, her debt to him did not extend this far. Rational thoughts begat rational actions, and this… there was no rationale that could justify this.

They could not leave Hueco Mundo from inside her quarters. The alarms would sound the second the formation of a Garganta was detected, and then the father or the friend would die.

"Karin. Yuzu. We are leaving. Stay close, and-"

A knock echoed through the room. Nel froze, eyes wide. Dondochakka, the lovable fool, called out "Coming!" as he went to answer.

The Cuarta Espada stood at the door. His gaze passed over her Fraccion dismissively before settling on Nel and the twins. "Aizen-sama has sent me to escort you. He was concerned that the humans would be injured if you were forced to defend yourself on the way."

Nel forced herself to respond. "He does not trust me to fulfill my assignment?" There was no question, then, that the ruler of Hueco Mundo knew what her future self would have done for the brother of these children.

The pause was barely noticeable, but still there. He spoke as though tasting the words for the first time. "As I am sure you remember, he instructs us to place our trust in no one."

Including Aizen-sama himself. Until this day she had never taken his words at face value. She wondered if the pale-faced Arrancar in the doorway trusted his ruler, or if he had internalized that particular lesson as thoroughly as every other instruction the former Shinigami had given him.

Ulquiorra turned his gaze from the former Espada Tres and towards the children. Nel stepped slightly in front of him, hand creeping towards the hilt of her sword. He ignored the implied threat, or perhaps it simply didn't concern him.

She would show him differently. Dondochakka and Pesche would run with the girls, if she told them to do so. They could open a Garganta farther away while she held him off. Protecting children was a cause worth fighting for.

"Did your brother tell you who I am, child?"

Protecting children was a cause worth dying for.

"The strongest Espada," Yuzu answered quietly.

Protecting children was a cause worth killing- _what? !_

"His information is mistaken. I am fourth. There are three others, even stronger than I."

"Ichi-nii knows everything about you," Karin spat. "You used _both _your stupid power-ups against him, and he still kicked your ass, and he'll do it again!"

"Both…?" Nel whispered. She looked at Ulquiorra, who had not shown any reaction to the revelation.

"He's got two… whatever the word is. Resurrections. The shonen shapeshift thing that you can all do to get stronger," the dark-haired girl answered. "Ichi-nii said he was stronger than your Zero Espada. You know, the guy he _killed with his bare hands._"

Nel released her Pesquisa, and sensed the reiatsu of the beings in the area. It hadn't changed- Ulquiorra's reiatsu, or at least the reiatsu he had chosen to reveal, was slightly but noticeably weaker than what she had placed Harribel's at. But if he had a second Resurreccion… how was that even _possible?_

Against the Cuatra, she might have lasted long enough to buy the time for the children to escape. Against the Cero, she wouldn't gain more than a few seconds, and Pesche and Dondochakka would die with her.

"Come." Ulquiorra turned, clearly expecting them to fall in line. "It is dawn."

Nel removed her hand from the hilt of Gazmusa. The irony of the situation left a sour taste on the back of her tongue. For the first time since Nnoitra's cowardly attack, she had a cause to fight for, but was not capable of challenging the only available opponent. She could do nothing but hope that Kurosaki Ichigo deserved the faith his sisters had in him.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

As the first edge of the sun finally rose above the horizon, Ichigo appeared in a Rukongai valley bordered by a mountain range that had not yet been destroyed. In the distance, Unohana Retsu's manta-ray shikai approached with three additional passengers, while Renji ran at Minazuri's side. They were not the closest auras; the valley was surrounded by the reiatsu signatures of the most powerful shinigami in Soul Society, and waiting for him nearby…

"Hey, brat! Catch!"

… he knew he'd forgotten something.

The firework sailed through the air and landed squarely in his palm, exploding on contact. A massive explosion of bright white and blue briefly competed with the first light of dawn.

"Ow," Ichigo deadpanned, dusting off his now-soot-covered hand.

"You think you can just leave without a word, kid?" Shiba Kukaku stalked up, her brother trailing behind her with a smirk on his face. Yoruichi leaned against a rock off to the side, letting his recently-discovered cousins have their say.

"Sorry. It was a busy night."

She punched him on the head, as she had done once before when they were staying at her house. As she cursed and grabbed her hand in pain, he was somewhat wistfully reminded of his own father's typical greeting when he walked in the door at home. He never thought he'd miss that.

"We heard from the _rumor mill_ that two of our cousins had been kidnapped! And that the third was going to be executed at dawn!"

"I don't plan on letting Aizen kill me." How many times was he going to have to say it?

Ganju rubbed his head slightly sheepishly. "Yeah, but Sadatomo heard the news from his mom's cousin's sister-in-law in the Third Division. These things grow in the telling, y'know? We'd heard it was the Seireitei, and Sis was hauling out the Canon for another rescue mission before Yoruichi-san stopped by."

"Oh." Ichigo blinked. "Thanks."

"Do you have room for one more?" the square-jawed man asked seriously. "I know I didn't show up in your memories much, but they haven't happened yet. The redhead was trying to kill you a few weeks ago, and I'm family. Uncle Isshin and Yasutora will remember me."

"Ulquiorra knows who'll be there already. Thanks, but…" Ichigo paused. "What do you mean, 'you know you didn't show up'? I didn't show you guys most of those."

Kukakku smirked and clapped him on the shoulder as she walked past him, letting Minazuri begin the descent to the spot in front of Ichigo. "Come talk to me when you get back. You need an agent, and you really should have some royalties coming. There's no-one better than family to take care of that. And bring my cousins with you!"

Ganju followed her with a wave as Ichigo shook his head slightly, getting the feeling he was missing something. But…

... she'd said _when_, not _if_. At least someone had some faith in him.

He raised a hand in greeting as Renji dropped next to him and Rukia and Ishida jumped off the back of the manta to join them. Orihime and Unohana followed more sedately when it had fully settled to the ground, and the entire giant manta quickly siphoned itself into the sheath at Unohana's side.

"Good morning, Kurosaki-san," Unohana said, as calmly as ever, and the rest of the newcomers half-heartedly added their helloes.

"You guys act like you're going to a funeral," Yoruichi said, coming over to join them. The joke fell flat, and Orihime looked away with misty eyes.

"Relax," Ichigo told her. "I'll take care of it." The attempt at reassurance didn't seem to help much, and he sighed before glancing at the additions to Ishida's outfit. "Nice bracelet. Where'd you get it this time?"

The first true rays of sun dully gleamed across the metallic surface as Ishida twisted his wrist, gazing down at the Quincy Bangle with a fresh sense of satisfaction. "It was in the possession of the Twelfth Division. Korutsuchi Nemu believed it would prove useful today."

Ichigo nodded, glad that the lieutenant wasn't holding a grudge over what, according to his hollow, her captain had ordered her to do. Yoruichi handed Ishida a bandolier of small vials, saying "Here. I've been back for more than an hour; from what you said they should be fully charged."

As Ishida thanked Yoruichi, Unohana stepped slightly closer to Ichigo and murmured, "Kotetsu-fukataicho and Yamada-san wished to accompany us, but there was an emergency shortly before we left. Kusajishi-fukataicho brought her captain to be treated. He had somehow lost almost ninety percent of the blood in his body. I was unable to stay to hear the full story, but your name was mentioned."

Ichigo became suddenly absorbed by the movement of the clouds across the windy sky, feeling absurdly as though he were five years old again and trying to avoid talking about the after-school fights over his hair color with his mother.

"It was well done." She smiled at his startled glance. "Learning to rely on others is often a painful process. Kenpachi-taicho will live, and will be a better man for the experience."

"I dunno how much I helped, really. You don't become someone's best friend just by learning their name." His hand drifted involuntarily to where Tensa Zangetsu had stabbed him, both the previous day and two weeks ago. Understanding, acceptance… they took time to build.

"It is a fresh start, at least, and his sword has begun healing."

Far to his left, in midair over one of the mountains, a gate made of a paper door appeared in midair. Ichigo turned to face it, the chain of his sword uncurling from his waist, only to be stilled by Unohana's cautious hand on his covered left arm.

"I am expecting guests. If you fall, we will need allies, Kurosaki-san, and though I regret the circumstance I could not have asked for a better way to mend the rift between us." She took her hand off his arm and flash-stepped away, her last words lingering behind her. "Goodbye, Kurosaki Ichigo, and good luck."

The Senkaimon slid open, and a blond figure ran out, then fell several body lengths before solidifying the air under his feet and starting to yell at the man following him, who was wearing a familiar green outfit and a hat that looked ridiculous even from this distance. Behind them, every Vizard but Hiyori left the gate and breathed the air of Soul Society for the first time in a century.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

As the last of the walking wounded left the Senkaimon and Urahara flash-stepped away towards the center of the valley, Yamamoto appeared in mid-air facing them. The closest captains and lieutenants also approached before being warded off by a gesture from Yamamoto's cane.

"Shinji Hirako. Why have you broken your exiles?"

Shinji tipped his cap, his grin widening. "Really, Yama-jii? Today of all days, are you going to start a fight over forty-six dead idiots?"

Yamamoto opened his eyes slightly and ignored the taunt. "Why are you _here_, young'un?"

"I requested their presence, Yamamoto-soutaicho." The captain of the Fourth Division approached the space between the two groups from the side.

"We owe her one, and as payment she asked us to be here today."

"And as I said, Hirako-san, I do not require thanks for saving the lives of my allies. I am grateful that you accepted my invitation."

"Allies?" Shinji snorted. "You guys got anything to say to anyone here?" The question was addressed over his shoulder, and his hand gesture encompassed all of the shinigami observing from a distance.

"Nope."

"I don't care."

"Me either."

"Not in the Gotei 13."

"Ditto. How come?"

"…" Lisa hesitated, but then shunpoed off in Kyoraku Shuunsui's direction, moving slightly stiffly from wounds that were just barely healed.

Shinji blinked after her. "Huh."

"The hostages have been staying with you for weeks, and I merely thought you would appreciate the opportunity to see them returned," Unohana smiled. "It has been a long time since you left home. Things are not as you remember."

" 'Left home'? You make it sound so friendly," the former captain of the Fifth responded dryly. "I'm not seeing any differences. At least I changed my hairstyle a couple of times this century."

"So did he!" Mashiro chirped from behind him. "What happened to your beard?"

Yamamoto grunted in irritation, moving his cane slightly so as to make the shortened length less obvious. "I cannot overturn a previous ruling of the government, even with the powers given to me under martial law. Today, though, we have other concerns. I will not initiate hostilities."

"Wow. Thanks, Soutaicho," Love muttered, clearly underwhelmed.

"However," Unohana interjected, her smile still not wavering, "we will soon have a new government, and opinions towards… people with your powers… have been changing recently. A recent public relations campaign is showing promising preliminary results, and with recent events that trend is likely to continue."

Everyone loved a martyr.

"' Public relations campaign?'" Shinji blinked, and then chuckled slightly, pushing his cap farther back onto his head. "You actually like him, don't you?"

"The boy had potential." Yamamoto finally gave into his senior captains' subtle prodding. "Those laws may be re-examined in the near future."

"If they get their heads out of their asses, you know where to find us," Shinji answered with a shrug, then paused and added, "Actually, you don't. We've already moved. Talk to Kisuke, if he's still around."

He turned and went back towards his group, but was stopped by Yamamoto's final words.

"The Fifth and the Ninth Divisions lack captains."

He deeply wished he could see his former subordinate's expression at the moment. His stance had gone absolutely rigid, and his hand was gripping the hilt of his sword with white knuckles. Mugarama Kensei's teeth were drawn back in a snarl, and the rest of their companions had stiffened, eyes wide.

Shinji released his sword and answered lightly without turning around. "Get forty-six bigoted nobles to change a millennia-old law, and we'll talk."

He began to stroll away again, but then glanced back and said, "And don't use the past tense yet. I think the kid'll surprise you."

Yamamoto turned away as Rangiku Matsumoto shouted and pointed to the valley. It was beginning.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

As the distant Yamamoto confronted his former subordinates, Urahara separated himself from the group and began flash-stepping to the center of the valley where the humans and Yoruichi waited. He finally appeared in front of Ichigo, sword-cane in hand and hat held to his head.

"Geta-boshi. Why're you here?"

"To take responsibility for my actions, and to apologize."

Ichigo frowned. "What?"

Urahara pulled his hat farther over his eyes as Yoruichi came over to join him. "For not talking some sense into Isshin… I am sorry, Kurosaki-san."

Ichigo shrugged. The knowledge that his mother's murderer was dead had yet to fully sink in, but it had been one of the few bright spots of the last night. "You wouldn't have been able to stop me either. He needed to die."

"Ichigo… think about that," Yoruichi said, "and think about how it will affect Karin and Yuzu if you sacrifice yourself for them."

"It's _not_ the same thing."

"It's exactly the same thing! They'll think it's their fault!" she snapped, and then visibly forced herself to calm down. "Just... remember them, and don't do anything stupid."

"I'll do what I have to." Ichigo smiled at her. She was not reassured.

Behind her, exactly where the monstrous Aizen had taken the sword through the head that had started the entire ordeal, a closed gate appeared.

Yoruichi cursed, and she and Urahara left in a buzz of shunpo as the paper doors cracked open. It was beginning.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Three adult Arrancar and, incongruously, a prepubescent girl walked through the mist coming from the opening doors of the Senkaimon. Ichigo recognized both Ulquiorra and the man Gin had identified as the Primera in the Espada lecture; if you added flesh to the skeleton of the Vasto Lord that Gin had shown ruling Las Noches he might have looked like the old man at Ulquiorra's side, which probably made him the Segunda. Barragan something-or-other. The being directly responsible for the fall of Hachi's barriers. His hand drifted casually to the sword at his side.

At the gesture the four Arrancar came to an abrupt stop across from him, and the silence stretched as the mist from the open gate curled around their feet before billowing up to meet the rays of the early morning sun and the light breeze blowing across the valley. Ulquiorra mirrored Ichigo's pose as the old man shifted the axe slung over his shoulder to an easy attack position.

"Good morning!"

The growing tension shattered at Orihime's words, and as Ichigo looked at her, startled, the little girl next to the Primera hollered "Good morning!" back, returning her bow with a cheerful wave. Remembering himself, Ichigo released his sword and let the chain, which had begun to involuntarily creep around his right arm, return to its position coiled around his waist. This wasn't the time.

It looked like Aizen had sent the three strongest Espada as their escorts. The kid in white he wasn't sure about; although Gin had mentioned that the new Espada Tres was also a woman, this wasn't her unless she was hiding her reiatsu reallywell. She felt even weaker than Yammy had when not in Resurreccion. That made Ulquiorra's inclusion a bit out of the pattern; either Aizen knew that Ulquiorra was rightfully the Cero Espada when fully released, and was acknowledging it, or he had chosen Ulquiorra instead of the Espada Tres for his loyalty, not his power. As the Primera approached him, a slender communicator in one hand, he idly wondered if Aizen had been as ignorant of Ulquiorra's released form as the Cuarta Espada had claimed.

"We're supposed to confirm that the arrangements have been followed. Your dad's got the other one, kid," the brown-haired man said, pressing a button and handing the device to Ichigo. He watched the orange-haired teen curiously as Ichigo walked farther away, out of easy earshot, and began speaking to his family for the first time since he had come back from the future.

"Goat-face. Are you there?"

"Ichigo." The voice that responded was unquestionably his fathers, but had a shattered note in it that he had never heard before, even at his mother's funeral. "Son… I-"

"Dad. It's OK. It's not your-" but, no, the empty platitude wouldn't help here. They both knew they wouldn't be in this situation if Isshin hadn't gone after Grand Fisher. "I understand. I was willing to die to kill him too. You didn't know, and I'm glad he's dead."

He truly was. Knowing that the monster that had consumed his mother's soul was dead in this timeline made the trip through time worthwhile. This entire situation had changed nothing about his original resolve, really- he would protect the people that were precious to him, and kill Aizen before any of them got hurt.

"He was dead in the future you came from, Ichigo."

Although the twitch of Ichigo's hand was very slight, it was enough to send hairline cracks through the communicator and start up a hissing and crackling sound for several seconds before the sounds faded enough to hear "-lo? Hello? Ichigo, are you still there?"

"… yeah. Yeah, I can hear you." The background noise was still there, but the thing was apparently designed to work under stressful conditions. "What do you mean?"

"Aizen… Aizen knew for certain what my reaction to his presence would be because I had gone after him once already."

And they hadn't known. Ichigo closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He couldn't deal with this right now. "Have the arrangements been followed?"

Isshin paused, and then sadly accepted the change of subject. "This communication may be monitored. I will only say that if I had left Soul Society before I had seen Aizen release his sword, my future self would not have given you the training he did."

Ichigo translated that to mean that his father did not wish to talk about the Final Getsuga Tensho on an unsecure line, but that if he could have been sure in the final battle that he was not being hypnotized, he would have attacked Aizen with it himself rather than train Ichigo to do so.

"I'll give the phone to Chado, who has not yet seen Aizen release his sword. Good luck, Ichigo."

"Dad-" No, he couldn't leave it at that. It might be the last time they spoke. "Dad, it's still true. I'll wait. Until you can tell me. I'll wait."

His father's voice had a smile in it. "If you don't come back, I'll shave."

Ichigo pictured it, and blinked. He'd probably look a lot like Ganju.

"Ichigo." Like his father's, Chad's voice was worn and haggard. "I'm-"

"You did everything you could," the orange-haired boy hurriedly cut him off. The constant apologies were getting annoying. "We don't have much time- what's going on around you?"

"We are in a transparent cage in a sealed cave somewhere in Hueco Mundo." As he spoke, the other boy's voice grew calmer and deeper, until he had regained his familiar unflappable tone. "Aizen locked and sealed it a few minutes ago. He put the key inside the power-binder, and gave it to Nel. Her brothers took us through a Garganta to here, and they're guarding us now."

Although he wasn't sure how useful Pesche and Dondochakka would be in a fight, Ichigo appreciated the sentiment.

"Nel will be there soon to unlock you. And… Chad, my sisters… if I don't…" but, just like the last time the two had spoken, he couldn't get the words out. "Please."

'_Please, Chad, remember our promise, keep it like you always did, I will never want to protect anything more than I want to protect them-'_

As always, Chad understood what he did not have the strength to say, and his voice grew determined as he answered, "I will, Ichigo. I will not fail you again. I will grow stronger."

"You never did." Ichigo paused. That hadn't come out quite right. "Um, never failed me, I mean- you got a lot stronger…"

He knew Chad well enough to hear the humor in his voice. "I know. Here are the girls."

With his typical brevity, Ichigo was handed over to the conversations he was dreading.

"Ichi-nii, you're being an idiot! _We don't want this!_"

"I do, Karin. This'll be over soon. Don't worry."

"I'm not worrying!" Her voice was choked. She was crying. He could count the number of times she'd cried since their mother died on his thumbs. Dammit, he was a shitty brother.

From behind him where Ichigo's four friends were facing off against the four Arrancar, Ulquiorra said, "The air in that cell will quickly be depleted, Kurosaki."

Karin had given Yuzu the phone. "Nii-san… we love you. Come home."

His heart broke a little. He had avoided giving that promise to anyone else.

"It'll be OK, Yuzu. I will."

He knew even as he made it that it was one he might not be able to keep.

He was between the two groups in a single step and handed the communicator to Ulquiorra.

"Let's go."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

As they followed the Arrancar to the waiting Senkaimon, Renji gave an embarrassed cough. "Before we head out… there's a ritual-like chant we do in the Gotei 13…"

"No," Ichigo said instantly. Like hell he was going through that in front of Ulquiorra. "Not this time. We don't have any time to spare."

Renji grimaced, but nodded. As he stepped into the gate, Ichigo was careful not to notice the muttering that sounded suspiciously like 'believe our swords will not shatter'. Superstitious pineapple.

The gate closed behind them, and Ichigo caused his mask to appear on his face. The little girl squeaked and ducked behind the Primera until he took it off with his left hand and hefted his sword with his right. "So I just toss these into the time current?"

"No."

Ichigo frowned and looked at the Cuarta Espada. It had been a rhetorical question. "What?"

"You must first prove your identity."

"What? Who does he think I'd _be_?" This hadn't been part of the arrangement; there wasn't any way Aizen would double-cross him _before_ his power was sealed, was there?

"One of your allies has the ability to construct gigais and power-concealing cloaks," Ulquiorra answered.

Urahara. He hadn't even considered putting in a substitute. "So what does he want?"

"To prove that you are Kurosaki Ichigo, show that you have moved past the edge of reason."

"I don't have time for guessing games," Ichigo snapped. "What the fuck does he-" and, in the distance, a yellow light appeared.

Oh. He'd forgotten it would be here. It hadn't been the last time, because Aizen had destroyed it on his way to Soul Society. Without merging with the Hogyoku, Aizen could no longer do so, and there was indeed only one being in all the worlds that had the power to affect the Kototsu.

He raised his sword and prepared to meet the thing, but a flash of memory stopped him.

/ _"You fought as a shinigami. Always Getsuga, never Cero."_/

Eh. What the hell, why not.

He replaced the mask on his face, and as quickly as though he were using a Bala and not a Cero, a red ball of energy formed between the tips of his horns and fired.

The wake of its passing sucked both Orihime and the little girl off of their feet with matching yelps, and a thunderous crack as he let it loose showed that whatever passed for the sound barrier in this world had been completely shattered. Far off in the distance, the newly visible lights of the Kototsu flared a bright red, then disappeared. The heat wave from the explosion reached them a few seconds later, and blew Ichigo's long hair in a stream behind him.

When they could hear again, Ichigo turned his grinning death's-head back to their escorts. The three Espada were all impressively stoic, though Barragan had a white-gripped hold on his axe handle, and the Primera's hand stayed on his companion's head when she scrambled back to her feet.

He removed the mask, and tossed it casually into the time current nearest to him, shifting slightly so that he didn't become caught. His sword quickly followed it.

"Deliver your message, Ulquiorra."

Without a word, the dark-haired Arrancar pulled out a communicator of his own and walked away. Seconds later, a Garganta appeared far downstream of them, and three distant figures emerged. Nel, Tosen, and Aizen.

When they appeared, Barragan ripped open the air in front of him, clearly considering his escort duty complete. Ulquiorra paused and gave Ichigo a final considering glance, but then followed the Segunda into the dark hole, leaving only the brown-haired man and the horned girl standing near them.

"Do you know who we are?"

Ichigo frowned. "You're the Primera. You were dead before I got to the human world. I don't know her."

"Kurosaki Isshin also told us that we and our companions died in your future." His grip tightened on the girl's bone helmet until she started squirming and batted his hand away. "We are the Primera Espada, Coyote Starrk and Lilynette Gingerback. We were your father's guard in the night. He has a great deal of faith in you, Kurosaki Ichigo. Good luck."

Ichigo stared after him as they joined their peers and the rip in the air closed behind them. That had been… odd. 'We?'

He dismissed it as Nel blurred away from Aizen's side, moving as fast as he remembered, and stopped in the corridor halfway between the two parties. Ichigo took a deep breath. This was it. He turned to the friends that had and would have stood with him against the world.

"Guys… thanks. Get them out of there." There had been too many good-byes in too short a time, and he wasn't going to say another. He raised his hand in a casual farewell as he turned away, took a single step, and stopped in front of Nel.

No, not Nel. Neliel. There was no trace of the child he had protected or the still-childlike woman who had protected Ichigo in the serene countenance of the Espada now standing in front of him. She was dressed in an extremely modest white pantsuit with her sword hanging from her side. Her mask was unbroken, and the only time he had seen her expression as calm as it was now was when she had been actually fighting Nnoitra.

"Kurosaki Ichigo. Karin and Yuzu say that in the future I found within you a reason to fight."

Her voice, at least, was as he remembered it- high and thin, the most childlike part of her, though she didn't have a lisp any more. He shrugged in response, taking the black circlet she offered to him without hesitation. "You were a little kid, and I've got sisters of my own. I stepped in a couple of times when you got involved in my fights. When you grew up you wanted to thank me for it."

As she raised her eyebrows, he closed his eyes and clasped the collar around his neck. Nothing happened.

"We must be able to sense your reiatsu for the key to be released," Neliel reminded him, "and there is not much time remaining."

He'd only done this once before, and it had been in the heat of the moment, in a desperate attempt to shelter two men from a stream of lava- but if his instincts needed a sense of urgency, the thought of his family and best friend suffocating to death while he stood around should be enough-

-and, suddenly, Neliel was being forced to her knees with a strangled gasp, her composure broken, and the small container on the back right side of the collar was heating up and flaring blindingly bright, and his own senses were fading as the reiatsu-sealing collar fulfilled its primary function until he couldn't feel either the power constantly singing through his soul or the new whisper in his mind-

The container on the collar shattered. Neliel gulped in a breath of air as the pressure faded. It was done.

He felt like he had been wrapped in cotton. Every sense he possessed was muffled, even the ones he had considered unaffected by his spirit pressure like sight and hearing. He wondered if this was what it would be like for his entire life if he used the Final Getsuga Tensho, and then wondered how long he could stay sane in a world this dull and colorless.

Neliel had risen to her feet and reached around him for the exposed key attached to the back right of his neck, but her fingers grazed the skin of his neck and she pulled them back with a hiss.

"Sorry." He was still untouchable, then. That was actually a relief- his power was still there even though he couldn't feel it. He was still one with his zanpakuto, and if he chose to become Getsuga there nothing he could not destroy.

"It is nothing." She reached up again, but then hesitated, and said, "Aizen-sama did not lie about your sisters, you know. I will see them to safety."

"I know you will. You're the only one in Hueco Mundo who would."

"I am glad." She smiled, and suddenly he could see the woman who had taken his place on a battlefield to thank him. Nel circled around behind him to get better access to the key, and reached up once more to retrieve it.

"But remember this, Kurosaki Ichigo." She leaned in close as her fingers curled around the key, and her lips just barely grazed the curve of his ear. As the top layer of skin disintegrated, she murmured, "I am _not_ your sister."

Ichigo blinked. The reply welled up from deep within him. "Masochist."

She gave a low, throaty chuckle that did not match her voice and stepped back, wiping a drop of blood from her lips. Without another word, she disappeared, and he was no longer capable of tracking her as she sonido'd to his friend's sides. She formed a Garganta, and Renji, the most powerful of the four, took the lead as they ran into the rip in the air. Orihime, Ishida, and Rukia followed, and Neliel brought up the rear.

This was it, then. He had done everything he could. If he couldn't be with his family himself, then at least he had given their safety to the people he trusted most in the world.

The Garganta closed behind them.

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As the distant Neliel tu Odelshwank stepped into the rip in the air, Aizen took a tiny black ball from the pocket of his voluminous white coat, and allowed the searching tendrils of black power that it extended to coil around his fingertips. The Hogyoku fused with him, freely giving its master its power for a single instant, in a prelude to the unlimited power he once had possessed and would someday possess again. As the Garganta closed, he released a pulse of reiatsu that activated a process he had never begun in the future that would never be.

Kurosaki Ichigo's spirit pressure disappeared, and Aizen smiled.

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They were gone, and any sense of urgency and desire to restrain his spirit pressure left with them. As soon as Ichigo stopped making the conscious choice to lower the level of his power to allow it to interfere, the collar around his neck was no longer able to seal him. As his reiatsu senses returned and every part of his soul was once again his to use, Ichigo felt a huge surge of relief.

He had been right. The good-byes had been unnecessary, and he would keep the promise to his little sister, and Aizen would die for _daring_ to threaten them-

A phosphorescent circle of white energy started at Aizen and instantly expanded in every direction, passing through Tosen and Ichigo harmlessly and coming to a stop about half a mile out from its creator.

Three things happened simultaneously. Ichigo opened his right hand, and the familiar black daito manifested itself with the chain already wrapped around his arm. He took a step, and appeared in front of Aizen. And a white ribbon extended from Tosen's arm and swirled around the two former captains.

His sword passed through the air where they had stood a bare instant earlier, and Ichigo snarled as he felt for their reiatsu. The two traitors had only gone about half a mile away, and were now just outside the ring of energy.

He knew instinctively that that couldn't be good.

He began to pursue them, but as he travelled halfway across the distance between them in a single step, the circle sent out another pulse of energy, and all of the spirit particles within the circle and within the cylinder of air above and below it started to glow with the same brilliant white light.

As Ichigo's body took on the same blinding glow, he was consumed by more pain than he could remember ever feeling before.

He managed to scream once before his vocal cords locked up completely.

"Kurosaki Ichigo." Aizen's mocking voice was in his ear, though he was still standing next to Tosen outside of the boundary of his trap, and the minor part of Ichigo not consumed by agony recognized the kido as the one that Isane had used to warn everyone about Aizen's treachery. "I once told you that every battle you fought was in the palm of my hand. Did you ever wonder why I bothered?"

The fatal wound that Ulquiorra had given him, the sword through his stomach that he had lived through twice, even the searing torture of the trip through time- they were _nothing _compared to this feeling. Whatever Aizen was doing felt like he was being disintegrated particle by particle from the inside out. He knew, though, that he had felt a similar pain once before, though he had not remembered it until this instant because the dominant part of him had been unconscious when he had instinctively split his soul into three pieces a mere two weeks ago.

As he strained to raise a hand with muscles that were refusing to function, so that he could open a Garganta, so that he could _escape_, he decided he still really didn't care about Aizen's bullshit.

He put everything he was still capable of into calling the gate, but the power he sent out became visible, and flared with the same white light, and was lost in the swirling currents of reishi around him.

"Were you told how to make a replacement for the King's Key, Kurosaki? It is not difficult, but the ingredients are hard to come by. The first is a circle of land one spirit-mile in diameter with sufficient spirit particles. Anywhere in Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, or the Dangai Precipice World will do, but there is only one location in the mortal world with a high enough density of reishi.

"That is problematic, because the second requirement is the sacrifice of living souls, which are in short supply in any world but your own. The minimum amount of power necessary to complete the formation of the Oken is equivalent to roughly one hundred thousand human souls."

Ichigo managed to begin to place one foot in front of the other, and began to walk in the direction of Aizen's reiatsu with a snarl on his face, no longer capable of flash-step but still determined to shut him up.

"Tell me, Kurosaki Ichigo, how powerful do you think you have become?"

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Rukia stumbled for the third time and mentally cursed Renji's poor control, wishing her own power had fully recovered so that she could take the lead herself. She was Renji's unquestioned superior in kido; any path that would form under her feet _had_ to be better than the rough walkway that trailed behind Renji.

Neliel, following behind them, said "We cannot afford this, Shinigami. It has been almost half an hour since they were sealed, and the enclosure is not large."

She took the lead and began running, and a shimmering white pathway extended in front and behind her. She held her pace to one that her companions could match, although barely, and soon the air in their old hideout shattered open to release them. Pesche and Dondochakka waved at the newcomers frantically from next to a cube of a transparent blue the size of a large bathroom. Four figures, two large and two small, were slumped on the floor.

"Nel-sama!"

"How long have they been like this?" she asked curtly as she ran to the entrance to the cage.

"Not long. We've been trying to wake them up, don'cha know, but they're not answering," her gargantuan Fraccion answered.

She placed the key into the lock, and her blood turned to ice as nothing happened for a long second, and she wondered if the young man's sacrifice had been in vain after all.

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Ichigo staggered and fell to one knee, eyes wide.

"You were my backup, Kurosaki. If the Oken could not be constructed from the humans of Karakura, the power of a transcendental being with a human soul would be sufficient to grant me access to the King's Dimenion."

A flash of memory, of a phrase that had bewildered him both when he heard it the first time and when he had replayed it for the shinigami.

/ "_We are leaving you here. You shall be devoured after everything is finished."_/

"I admit that your growth surpassed what I had anticipated, enough to temporarily exceed my own, but though I cannot yet understand your power your soul remains human. You will become the means by which I destroy the barriers in myself and surpass every being in existence forever."

In front of him, the swirling spirit particles began to slowly, so slowly, condense in front of him. As he looked blearily down at his sword, the weapon that was an extension of his soul, he could see the chain begin to fragment and swirl away to join the spirit-particles from the environment, and knew that the same process was happening to his entire being.

"Die comforted, Kurosaki Ichigo. There is now no need to ever attack Karakura. You will provide all of the power I need."

_/"There's no need to worry. There will be no need to destroy Karakura Town. You will..._"

_He was interrupted by Ichigo's hand in his face, pushing him to open land._/

Ichigo finally collapsed, and lost himself to the pain.

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Finally, _finally,_ the cube disappeared, and all four figures were freed. Nel instantly hauled the twins to a clearer part of the room, and Karin was the first to start gasping as fresh air entered her lungs for the first time in several minutes. Yuzu stayed quiet, but her color swiftly started improving, and as Ishida poured a flask of water over his head Isshin also started stirring. As soon as he was aware, the doctor shoved himself to his feet without bothering to speak and staggered over to check his children's vital signs. He soon sighed in relief at what he found.

"They'll be fine with a bit of rest. I've never been much use with healing kido, but if one of you can get the collar off I'll give it a shot."

Behind him, Rukia had already started a spell on Chad; it had only the same low power as the ones she had used on Ichigo's wounds when she was training him to fight hollows, but since the large teen was comparatively uninjured it was enough to begin restoring his energy and return him to consciousness. He rolled over and coughed, and Orihime knelt by his side and offered him a flask of water.

"Do not move, Kurosaki Isshin." Nel unsheathed Gazmusa.

Isshin's eyes went wide. "Wait a minute, now-" but she had already swung, faster than the powerless man could react, and the reiatsu sealing collar shattered. He breathed a huge sigh of relief, both at his survival and the return of his powers, and as Nel repeated the action for Chad he picked up the sword that Ulquiorra had delivered with the children half an hour ago. He knelt beside Yuzu and called a green glow to his right hand.

"How long?" Chad asked, draining the flask and handing it back to Orihime with a nod of thanks.

"We left about fifteen minutes ago," Ishida answered. "It is likely already over, one way or another."

Orihime's breath caught slightly, and the green glow over Yuzu's heart blinked out. Rukia gave the dark-haired archer a dirty look.

"He's fine."

"I have promised to see you to safety," Nel said quietly. "Where do you wish the Garganta to go?"

They froze simultaneously, and then turned look at her. Renji was the first to start grinning.

"Back to get him, of course."

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He didn't know how long he lay there, unable to scream, as his soul was deconstructed piece by piece and funneled into the shape that had manifested above him, that of a large golden tri-pronged key. It felt like it had been an eternity, but he knew that it was the pain speaking, and that it had probably been less than an hour. His coat, which was also a part of the manifestation of his final release, had followed his sword, and he was unarmed and half-naked. As the pain faded, he could feel Aizen approaching alone through the last glittering spirit particles funneling towards the new Oken, and somehow managed to find the strength to shove himself off the ground. He failed to stagger to his feet, and ended up in a seiza position, with one knee and one foot on the ground, completely exhausted.

"Why are you kneeling, Kurosaki?" Aizen was dressed much as he had been in the fight above the false Karakura, and the same mocking smile twisted his lips.

"The connection between your spiritual body and your soul must be severed for the completion of the Key. The simplest way to release the fraction of your soul still in your body, of course, is to kill it. You are finished, Kurosaki Ichigo."

Aizen unsheathed his sword, and Ichigo reached to find something, _anything_ left to fight back with- but the reserves of power that he had always called on or created in his most desperate moments had already been consumed to form the object floating above him-

'**Ichigo. Use me. My power is always with you.'**

And, miraculously, the wells of reiatsu in the parched desert that had been his soul began filling, fed by a source that was neither human nor alive and had therefore stayed untouched; a source that had been patiently biding his time while Ichigo's inner world shattered around him and hoarding his power until the opportunity arose to strike back. Ichigo suddenly had available to him both the reserves of one of Soul Society's most powerful Zanpakuto and the power that Ichigo himself had lent Muramasa to allow him to exist in Ichigo's presence.

"Finished?"

He raised his head slightly, allowing Aizen to see his amber eyes, calm and confident despite his precarious position.

"Is that all you've got?"

Aizen's expression hardened. "Are you still able to speak? How pathetic."

"Do you know the difference between you and me, Aizen?"

"I am pleased to say that there are too many to count, Kurosaki Ichigo." He raised his sword, execution-style.

You couldn't say that you knew someone just by knowing their name. Part of him had always known that, but the part that was dominant had only truly understood its meaning when he had chosen to stop fighting and fully accept his power in his inner world two weeks ago.

He had only achieved Shikai half a day ago. He had never used Muramasa's abilities on his own. They had only voluntarily worked together once, and had spoken on less than half a dozen occasions in this timeline.

"In the end, I chose not to be alone."

But Muramasa was a sword, and at the moment, Ichigo very badly needed a weapon.

Kyoka Suigetsu descended.

"Whisper, Muramasa."

He lunged underneath Aizen's strike, and as purple-wrapped katana formed in his hand he thrust upwards, once again piercing through the chin and into the brain.

In this timeline, Aizen had not yet fused with the Hogyoku.

He died alone.

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As Aizen collapsed, Ichigo fell back to his knees gasping in pain once again, as the surge of energy from the borrowed power also began to be sucked into the Oken still floating above him. He had to destroy the Key, or his connection to it would kill him even without Aizen's deathblow. He pulled his new sword out of Aizen's body, which was also dissolving, and used it as a crutch to shove himself to his feet before raising it as high as he could and mustering every fraction of power he had left.

'_**WAIT!'**_

But the shout came too late, for Muramasa was already descending. The incomplete Oken shattered instantly- and when it did, all of the power that it had contained was released back to where it came from. The spirit particles from the environment flashed outwards in a blindingly bright explosion, and Ichigo sailed through the air to land in a crumpled heap on the ground.

The fragments of the King's Key that had been his soul also needed somewhere to go, and also went back into their original container, in the reverse of the original process.

This time, Ichigo was able to scream.

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**Longest Author's Note of the story; mostly addresses future writing plans.**

As I said in the last chapter, this was the climax, and the conclusion will be up on July 30th. And, no, I haven't forgotten about either Tosen or the Hogyoku. They're both still around.

I've gotten a number of reviews saying that Muramasa's illusion power would be perfect to use on Aizen. I did not actually use any of Muramasa's powers in this chapter, for the reasons given just before Ichigo attacked Aizen, but if I had they wouldn't have been the illusion ones. In the anime, it was pretty explicitly stated that the affinity for illusions came from Koga's power, not Muramasa's. Ichigo isn't going to get to keep them.

"There will be no need to destroy Karakura. You will-" are Aizen's words just before Ichigo facepalms him in the anime. It is not in the manga; in the translation I've seen, Aizen just tells Ichigo there's no way he can give him a decent fight without any reiatsu. In my fic I wanted to include an explanation for why Aizen claimed to have been deliberately pushing Ichigo to grow stronger and the infamous 'eating you can be done later' phrase, so I had planned to have Aizen attempt to make the King's Key from Ichigo long before that episode came out. When I saw the fight on You Tube I did a happy-dance and changed that scene in Chapter 5.

I've received a number of reviews implying that the upcoming epilogue had better be pretty epic, to address the loose ends the story has left; I've also had questions about any other stories I have in the works. I'm extremely behind in my responses to reviews (and sorry if you've asked something and I haven't yet responded- my writing time has become considerably more limited), so let me answer them here. The epilogue will address the immediate aftermath of this chapter, and will probably not be unusually long. I am personally satisfied with where I plan to leave it, and think in general that this story stands well on its own, without a sequel being necessary.

With that being said, however, I am planning a collection of one-shots in this universe to address the events that Ichigo lived through and that the shinigami have foreknowledge of. Not all of them will focus on Ichigo; for several of the movies and anime arcs, the shinigami have been given the information and are capable of dealing with the events on their own. I would also eventually like to stick in one or two scenes that I didn't wind up writing for this story- and here, I'm thinking specifically of the Kenpachi-hollow fight scene, which kept getting pushed back in the outline for chapter after chapter until it eventually got cut entirely. I do not yet know if I will cover the material in the manga and the anime that has come out since this fic was posted in October 2010; I will wait until they are finished before deciding whether or not I can work my story around them. Ditto for the Hell Chapter, which I'm very much looking forward to seeing. I worked some of the stuff from the previews into chapter 15.

This fic is currently on 1214 favorite lists and 993 story alert lists. (There's a lot of overlap. But, in case I haven't made it clear recently, you guys are awesome.) **It is not necessary** to also add my penname to a favorite authors/ author alert lists; when the first one-shot is finished, I will add the first few scenes as a new chapter to this story, and you can decide whether or not to read the new story then. If the site isn't showing nineteen chapters in Hogyoku ex Machina, I haven't started posting the one-shot collection yet; it's as simple as that. Also, don't hold your breath, since I'm going to take at least a month's break before even beginning to write any new stories, and they won't be updated nearly as regularly as this story was. But on the plus side, since they'll all be one-shots, there will be no cliffhangers.

I am toying with the idea of addressing the events after Ichigo's death by old age, as per Yamamoto's plan in chapter 11, but for a number of reasons I don't yet know if I want it to be a part of the one-shots or a separate multi-chapter fic. I hesitate because one of the major reasons I'm writing Hogyoku ex Machina is because there aren't enough good time-travel fanfics for Bleach, and I'm fairly certain that this is the only one, bad or good, that is close to being completed. I wrote the story I wanted to read, and couldn't find. There are, however, several good, completed Academy and post-death fics. I have also left Ichigo with all of the power he had at his most epic point of the series and more. Unless I introduce a DBZ-Cell-type character to challenge him, which would be frankly silly, the story would revolve around character interaction and there wouldn't be many fight scenes. I like writing fight scenes. I've also avoided making up many original characters, and would be forced to do so if Ichigo was entering a completely new environment sixty years in the future. My last consideration is that I have deliberately not chosen a romance interest for Ichigo in Hogyoku ex Machina, and will not change that, but if he dies of old age I'd make him a grandfather. If I went into his past life in any detail, as I probably would for a multi-chapter story, the grandmother would be unnamed and faceless. I am fully aware of how much of a cop-out that would be.

Finally, although I currently have no plans for more Bleach fanfiction outside of the Hogyoku ex Machina spinoffs, I am thinking about a couple of three-to-six-chapter-stories in other fandoms. I will likely not start working on those for quite some time, though.

See you in two weeks!


	18. Epilogue: Protected

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

**Spoiler Alert**: As usual, the manga/anime up through the Deicide arc.

**Author's note: **I have gotten some questions about the source material for the story. I have, for the most part, kept to canon material for stuff that it covers. I have made mistakes, and corrected most of them when they were pointed out, though I did leave a couple in. A reviewer reminded me, for example, that Ishida had told Ichigo about the 'no-contact-with-shinigami' deal he'd made with his father while the human boys were on the way to Hueco Mundo, so Ichigo would have known about it. I am quite fond of the 'you never told me how' joke in Chapter 3, so I didn't go back and change it. In a future one-shot, I may have a 'whups, I forgot' scene.

For the stuff that has not been covered in the manga, but which characters other than Ichigo could reasonably be expected to know, I filled in the blanks with my own material. Probably the biggest instance of that would be Isshin's history; I made him a Shiba clansman and the former vice-captain and captain of the Seventh, who took command after Love was hollowified, joined the Royal Guard five decades ago, and deserted when he met Masaki. I deliberately did not touch on the question of whether or not he had his powers when he did so; there's a lot of fan speculation that Isshin had used the Final Getsuga Tensho himself at some point. There are plenty of other places where I filled in the blanks; the vague timeline Gin gave for Aizen's takeover of Hueco Mundo and his construction of the Hogyoku is another example. If any of this stuff is contradicted by new material, I will decide whether to go back to change it on a case-for-case basis, depending on how much it affected my story. Isshin will always be a Shiba.

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_The incomplete Oken shattered instantly- and when it did, all of the power that it had contained was released back to where it came from. The spirit particles from the environment flashed outwards in a blindingly bright explosion, and ichigo sailed through the air to land in a crumpled heap on the ground. _

_The fragments of the King's Key that had been his soul also needed somewhere to go, and also began to funnel back into their original container, in the reverse of the original process._

_This time, Ichigo was able to scream._

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The only blessing was that it was still much easier for his soul to return to its true form than it was to split it apart- it only took a couple of minutes for the shattered fragments of the King's Key to return to their original state of being, even though its creation had probably taken almost an hour.

Of course, that also meant that the sensation was compressed into considerably less time.

-his sanity started slipping as his mind began to collapse under the sheer unending _pain, _and his instincts began to take over, and he knew that if he lost himself this time he wouldn't ever come back, because if his mind shattered there wouldn't be anything to come back _too_, and as he clung onto his sanity with his fingernails he realized distantly that if he hadn't already won the battle with his instincts once he wouldn't have even had a chance this time-

The pain stopped, and Ichigo relaxed, wheezing through his abused throat.

He didn't know how many minutes he lay there, simply breathing. Tensa Zangetsu, an extension of his soul, had displaced Muramasa in his right hand with the chain wrapped firmly around his arm. His coat, an extension of his reiatsu, was still completely gone, and he lay on the ground bare-chested and ungloved. He could feel the flow of reiatsu from his soul filling up his reserves of power, though, and knew that it was a temporary condition.

His attention was drawn back in the direction he'd come from at the sound of light footsteps off to his left. Tosen. He'd forgotten about the final traitor, understandably, and Ichigo was in no condition to fight anyone right now. Fortunately, the man was blind and Ichigo's reiatsu couldn't be sensed. He quieted his breathing, and used all of his strength to shove himself to his feet with both swords.

"Do you know what injustice you have perpetrated today, Kurosaki Ichigo? Do you know how many years of effort you have destroyed? You will pay with your life."

He didn't have the reiatsu to manifest his new ally, or to fire off a Getsuga Tensho or a Cero. His arms were weak enough that even raising his swords was a strain. He couldn't flash-step or run; in fact, he could barely walk. But his steps were silent, and his breathing quiet, and to every sense but direct sight, he was the ghost that Tosen Kaname had once named him.

"You won't answer? Do you believe that because I cannot feel you, you can hide?" Tosen raised his left hand across his face in a very familiar gesture, one Ichigo had performed a thousand times. His unseen opponent , still staggering close enough to try to strike, stiffened as black streams of power curled around his hand and spread across his body, and a giant vortex of wind and dust surrounded the black column of power that sprung up around the former captain of the Ninth. When it cleared, Tosen stood before him with a dead-white mask, broken only by the black stripe down the middle and without any eye, mouth, or nose-holes. Oddly, pieces of armor matching his sleeveless white overcoat now adorned his chest and shoulder.

"I have trained unceasingly for the past weeks, Kurosaki, to gain the power that Aizen-sama promised me would be mine. You cannot hide from me." He raised his sword. "Suzumushi Hyakushiki. Grillar Grillo!"

_/"You accepted Hollowification, and died in your resureccion form. In that form, you could see."_/

Ichigo stabbed forward desperately, but was pushed back as Tosen's reiatsu exploded outwards and greatly increased, coalescing into a dark, furred, vaguely fly-shaped body.

Ichigo stared in disbelief as Tosen began laughing.

"I can see! I can see! So this is the sky! So this is dirt!" He turned his obscenely distorted face, with a humanoid chin and giant bug-eyes, towards Ichigo. "So this is you, Kurosaki Ichigo."

'Lizard' was fine. He could have had it _so much worse._

Ichigo spoke for the first time since Aizen's death. "Go into Bankai. It might make you less ugly. Given what you've got to work with, though…"

"I have no need of any shinigami power to seek out my justice." Tosen shot forward, far faster than Ichigo could guard against, and sent Ichigo flying far back with deep claw marks in his chest. The wounds began healing, but incredibly slowly. "You are weak, Kurosaki."

Ichigo pushed himself to his knees one final time, with everything that he had left. He looked up, at the air behind Tosen, and smiled.

"I'm stronger than you can imagine."

Tosen approached on foot until his shadow loomed over to the kneeling boy, and two brilliant green Ceros began forming in front of his closed eyes. "Bravado to the last. Shall we end this, Kurosaki?"

As he released his missiles, though, he suddenly twisted to the side, sending the Ceros to impact the ground to Ichigo's left as a brilliant white arrow arced through the space where his head had been, as the last Quincy raced out of the rip in the air next his father.

"Kurosaki!"

"Ichigo! Are you all right?"

As Kurosaki Isshin charged at him, Tosen retreated from the vicinity of the orange-haired boy he had been about to kill. "Aizen-sama told me in great detail how I died, Shiba Isshin. I will not forget myself so easily this time."

"Guys…" Ichigo bowed his head, and then snorted. "What kept you?"

"You're welcome, Kurosaki," Ishida snapped back, forming another arrow on his bow. Renji, already in Bankai, and Chad with a set of white armor on his left arm that Ichigo had never seen before had been the next out of the Garganta. The non-combatants followed them, and Neliel brought up the rear.

"Where's Aizen?" Renji called out, circling to Tosen's right.

"Dead, of course. Why are you even asking?" Ichigo hollered back as Orihime, Rukia, and (he was relieved to see) Dondochakka and Pesche carrying his unconscious sisters ran over to him. Nel flanked Tosen's other side, while Chad joined Ishida in front of him.

"Declare, Gamuza!" The green-haired woman stretched her sword out in front of her and her surroundings exploded into an orb of pink light, which cleared to reveal that her lower half had turned into the body of a large beige goat that stopped abruptly at Nel's white-clad waist. Her shoulders, arms, and hands had gained armor, and the goat horns of her unbroken mask had grown considerably.

Tosen was surrounded, but quickly took to the skies to buy himself some more room. He dodged arrow after arrow as he dive-bombed Ichigo's position in rage.

"Lanzador Verde!"

"Getsuga Tensho!"

The monster dodged the black scythe of power, so similar to Ichigo's own, that came from Engetsu's blade, but was unable to completely avoid the spinning white lance that clipped one of his wings and sent him into an uncontrolled spiral- a spiral that was promptly intercepted by the bone head of Hihio Zabimaru, sending him crashing into the ground.

"Did that do it?" Renji asked, peering through the dust.

"It doesn't feel like it," Ishida answered, feeling the Vizard's reiatsu.

In the dust, Tosen began laughing. " 'Do it?'" As the dust cleared, they were able to see his wing regrow and the twisted bones caused by the jaws of the snake reform. "Your attacks cannot touch me."

"High-speed regeneration. What a pain," Isshin muttered.

"Aim for the head," Ishida called out, "or use an attack that will destroy enough of his internal organs that he cannot regenerate."

The fight restarted as Nel charged at him, her recovered lance held jousting-style, and he sonido'd away to avoid her. She proved that her Resurreccion had improved her own already-formidable speed as she pursued him, and in his second minute pause scored a solid hit just above his hollow hole. He grabbed the hand holding the lance and casually tossed her away. She landed in an awkward roll before staggering to all four feet.

Tosen had gotten considerably closer, and Ishida lined up a final glowing blue arrow. He could feel the strain on the bracelet as he aimed at the back of Tosen's head… but Isshin flashed into his line of fire to let loose another Getsuga Tensho

"Move, Kurosaki-san!" but the bug-man had moved to avoid the much closer Isshin, and the opportunity was lost as he took to the air to attack Renji again.

"I had the shot!" Ishida yelled furiously at the man who had blocked him.

"It's not one you should have taken," the former captain answered grimly.

Ishida frowned. Isshin was too young, surely, to have Ukitake's experience in fighting his people…

"Talk to your father when you get back, Uryuu. He'll have some answers for you." Isshin ignored the archer's widened eyes as he continued. "Chad, stay here until Renji drives him back over. Uryuu, take the right, I'll take the left. When I signal, take him above and below. I'll hit the center."

"That might be a problem," Ichigo said grimly from behind them, finally managing to stagger to his feet.

"Los Nueve Aspectos!" On the other side of the battlefield, glowing circles of green light managed to circle directly around Hihio Zabimaru's neck, and Renji's Bankai was destroyed as he collapsed to his knees with a groan, accompanied by Rukia's shout of dismay. She drew her sword and brushed off Orihime's attempt at restraint to circle the battlefield and stand between him and Tosen, who had turned away as soon as Renji was out of the fight and stalked back towards Ichigo, still intent on his revenge.

"Get ready," Isshin said grimly.

"Lanzador Verde!" As he ducked to avoid the attack from behind, Chad ran forward with his left arm glowing, throwing a punch at Tosen.

"El Directo!"

The former man just laughed and jumped above it, but that took him directly into the line of the arrow that Ishida had released, and his newly-formed eyes widened as he twisted frantically to avoid the glowing light.

He was unable to dodge a fourth time, and Engetsu pierced through the top of his mask.

"Getsuga Tensho."

The crescent of black light sliced cleanly through his entire body, and Tosen finally closed his eyes for good.

It was over.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

As the surge of adrenaline faded and exhaustion and a soul-deep ache set in, Ichigo staggered and nearly fell… and then did fall, as Orihime came automatically forward to catch him from behind and he twisted to avoid her touch on his still-bare arms and torso. She was _too close_, and he was too tired to have complete control over his movements right now, and he could easily kill any of them with just a flick of his hand-

"Don't!" he snapped from the ground, and winced as he saw Orihime's hurt expression. He softened his tone. "Sorry. But don't… you can't touch me right now."

"You can barely walk, Kurosaki," Ishida pointed out, ever-practical, while the rest of the group came to stand around them, with Rukia supporting an exhausted Renji, "and we cannot stay here much longer. The time currents are always shifting."

Isshin unwrapped the white material tied in a knot around his left shoulder, and unfolded it to reveal an aged captain's haori with the number 7 on the back. "Here. Put it on, and lean on me."

Rukia coughed to hide her laughter while Renji started snickering. "That ain't gonna work for long. Hitsugaya-taicho's gonna need a replacement after last night."

Ichigo shrugged a bit sheepishly as he let the sword in his right hand hang from his waist. He used the other to push himself to his knees, then paused, remembering… remembering a hand on his arm stopping him from interfering with a sword's retaliation against his wielder.

He knew he didn't have enough reiatsu in him to manifest the spirit, but Muramasa hadn't preferred that method anyway. What had the command been? An eager whisper supplied the answer.

"Yukojochu, Muramasa."

The first sign of his presence in the outer world was, oddly enough, laughter that Ichigo had heard once before, when Muramasa redirected Ichigo's strongest attack and added his own power to break the Soutaicho's barrier, and the triumph in his eyes as Muramasa appeared in a burst of purple light and blue mist matched and exceeded his expression that day.

"Is there any part of you now that pities me?"

Ichigo's lips twitched up. "No. Thank you."

Muramasa knelt to offer Ichigo his shoulder as support, as Senbonzakura would have done for Kuchiki Byakuya after a fight that would never happen. "As Zangetsu once did, I will choose the contest. Bankai training will take you _far_ longer than three days, Kurosaki Ichigo."

Ichigo shrugged as Renji started laughing outright. He didn't particularly need another Bankai, so that wasn't a problem, and the zanpakuto spirit had earned pretty much whatever reward he chose to name. He looked at Karin and Yuzu, still being carried by Pesche and Dondochakka.

"Are they all right?" They seemed unharmed, but he wouldn't have thought it was physically possible to sleep through all this.

"They'll be fine with some rest," Isshin answered. "I am not skilled at healing kido, but I could make sure that they slept deeper to recover faster than they might otherwise have done. Son, who is this, and what is going on?"

Oh. Right. Everything had moved so fast that none of the hostages would know about the most recent developments.

"This is Muramasa. I went to find him yesterday. He… decided… to become my zanpakuto. I used him to kill Aizen." He hefted the sword in his left hand in demonstration, and then glanced at the spirit he was leaning on. Carrying the weapon was becoming awkward. "How do I make this go away?"

Muramasa's face was turned away from him, and his voice was carefully bland as he replied, "Because you already carry a sword, and one that is unsuited to dual-blade fighting, it seemed reasonable to have my form be incorporeal until you enter Shikai. Merely seal my power, and it will disappear."

This time all three shinigami began snickering and even Ishida was hiding a smile as Ichigo stared at the new resident of his soul. "You know damn well I'm always in Shikai, don't you?"

Muramasa raised his right arm, the one Ichigo was not leaning on, and a sheath materialized in his hand in the same manner as his sword usually did. He handed it to his wielder with a solemn face and laughter still dancing in his eyes. "Until the day you learn control, Ichigo."

Ichigo shook his head in disbelief as he sheathed the weapon in his left hand and hung it from the belt of his hakama. Deciding to leave the matter of his unmanageable reiatsu for another time, he turned to Nel, who had dropped out of Resurreccion. "Thank you for your help."

She nodded in acknowledgement, face solemn. "Are you certain Aizen-sama is dead?"

"Yes." This time, there had been nothing to save him.

She bowed her head slightly. "I am… glad. It simplifies things. Do you need help returning to Soul Society?"

Ichigo gauged his recovering reiatsu levels. His coat was slowly regenerating; his left arm had become covered in half a sleeve in the last few minutes of the fight. "I can get us home, I think, but they're not going to be able to walk on my reiatsu."

"I can form the pathway," Isshin said, "but you'd be welcome, if you want to come, Neliel."

"No. We have no desire to travel to a land full of shinigami," the green-haired woman answered, glancing at her adopted brothers, "and I have missed the desert. We will leave you here."

Ichigo shrugged. "See you in Hueco Mundo, then. I have some unfinished business there."

"_We_ have unfinished business," his father said. "And I suspect that your cousins and Ukitake will want to accompany us."

"What?" Rukia asked, frowning. Ichigo winced.

"Can we talk about this later?" He'd have to figure out what he'd planned on keeping hidden that the shinigami knew about; there was his defeat of Ulquiorra and what had happened to Shiba Kaien's soul, but had there been anything else?

"Until next time, then, and good luck. Please give my love to Karin and Yuzu." Nel parted the air in front of her to show the whirling blackness of a Garganta, and stepped into it as Pesche and Dondochakka handed their sleeping burdens to Chad and Isshin and followed her with jovial goodbyes.

"Come visit!" Isshin hollered after them, and as the Garganta closed they could see Nel's quick smile as she turned and waved cheerfully.

"What should we do with Tosen-san?" Orihime asked, looking at the body of the former captain of the Ninth, which had returned to human form in death. "Komamura-san wouldn't want us to let him just fade away."

"Send him off," Chad answered simply. He gestured to the currents of time swirling in the distance. Renji nodded in agreement, and after Chad had handed Yuzu off to Orihime he and the red-head began hauling the corpse to its final destiny. As they shifted the body, however, a small blue-purple rock rolled out of the pocket of the white overrobe.

The orb bounced a couple of times and rolled a bit before coming to a stop with all eyes fixed on it.

"Ah." Tosen had not attacked Ichigo immediately; he now knew what the other man had done first. Aizen must have been carrying it with him when he died.

"What should we do with it?" Rukia asked, staring at the object that Urahara had placed in her soul.

"Toss it with him," Renji spat. "Get rid of the damn thing for good."

"It would come back, like a bad penny," Isshin answered wearily. "If that would have destroyed the Hogyoku, Kisuke would have done it a century ago, and I for one am not willing to test the Research and Development Associations' theory that travel through time in that manner cannot change the past."

"Can we give it back to Urahara-san?" Orihime asked tentatively.

"Because he did _such_ a good job with it the first time." Renji had barely met the man, but hadn't been impressed by his morals so far.

Ichigo dropped his arm from Muramasa's shoulder and knelt to pick the Hogyoku up. Urahara hadn't been able to destroy his creation, but as his successor in the Twelfth would loudly attest, Ichigo was _good_ at breaking rocks with his power. He gathered his power into his left hand as though he were going to cast a Getsuga Tensho, the same way that he had destroyed the memory projector that Mayuri had first given him.

As he began to let it flow into the rock, though, it extended dark tendrils of power that twisted around his finger.

_: __**fear**__ :_

Ichigo would deny until the day he died and for all of his existence thereafter that the noise he made as his hand jerked was a scream.

"What's wrong?" Renji asked, peering at it.

"It's alive!" Ichigo poked the Hogyoku with his finger cautiously, and then when it remained quiescent picked it up with his newly-clothed right hand.

"Aizen implied that it was in your memories, but Kisuke said it wasn't awake yet," Isshin said, coming to stand next to Muramasa and looking down at Ichigo's palm. Ichigo tossed the purple rock at him, and Isshin caught it with an undignified yelp.

"Be careful!" he snapped.

"I thought you said it wasn't awake yet?" Ichigo taunted. "I was going to push a Getsuga Tensho into it, but it started moving."

His father snorted and attempted to do the same thing Ichigo had just tried, but the power that Isshin released into the stone was simply absorbed without any visible effect. Isshin shook his head and tossed it back to Ichigo.

"Nothing."

"Look!" Ichigo pushed his own un-senseable reiatsu into it, considerably more gently, and it came alive once more.

_: __**!**__ :_

"Is it reacting because it has met you before, or because even now your power is greater than your fathers?" Ishida prodded the feelers wrapped around Ichigo's gloved hand cautiously, but they showed no reaction to his touch.

'_**Why are you awake?'**_ At his wielder's nonverbalized question, Muramasa stiffened and glanced at Ichigo in surprise.

_: __**? **__:_

Too complicated, Ichigo realized. It didn't seem smart enough to answer questions. He thought back to what he knew of it, and could only remember Aizen's random transformations in the middle of battle.

/ "_The will of the Hogyoku has finally begun to understand my heart."_/

Well, it certainly wasn't able to understand anything else…

_: __**grief**__ :_

Ichigo's hand clenched tighter around the rock in surprise as he felt it taste the memory, which he had automatically brought to the forefront of his mind.

It… it was sad that Aizen was dead.

It missed its master.

He shook his head slightly. It didn't matter. The Hogyoku had been the catalyst for the entire war. It had transformed countless hollows into Arrancar, distorted eight captains and lieutenants into Vizards, healed Aizen repeatedly, made him into as great a monster on the outside as he was internally, and when even that hadn't been enough to save Aizen, had sent them back in time. If what he had just felt from the rock had been correct, the only thing that could have removed the Hogyoku from Aizen in the original timeline would have been Aizen choosing to give it up.

Even worse, although he didn't have any idea how Urahara had constructed the original Hogyoku he'd implanted into Rukia, half of the Hogyoku came from the one that Aizen had made, and he had fed it parts of the souls of hundreds of people in an effort to complete it. It needed to be destroyed.

"It doesn't matter," Rukia said in response to Ishida's question, in an unwitting echo of Ichigo's own thoughts. "Can you break it, Ichigo?"

Ichigo gathered his power once again, and let everything that he had recovered and everything that Muramasa willingly fed to him flow into his hand. Though the observers could not feel his spirit pressure, they could see his power as a black shimmer around his hand, focusing on the small dark globe and the tendrils surrounding his fingers.

_: __**fear**__ :_

… what kind of being would serve its master that loyally, no matter what the master asked it to do? What kind of being would give its master everything he desired that was in its power to give?

_: __**?**__ :_

What form would that being take?

'_**Alright. Come.'**_

_: __**! **__ :_

"No. I can't." Ichigo withdrew his power, and the Hogyoku fell asleep once more. "I'll give it to Jii-san, I guess. He can rename it and stick it with the royal artifacts or something. Come on, let's bury him and get out of here."

As his friends hauled Tosen's body to the nearest current of time, Muramasa, the only being able to sense the flow of Ichigo's reiatsu, came up to help him stand once again.

"You did not actually attempt to destroy it," he murmured quietly enough that only Ichigo could hear him.

Ichigo just shrugged in reply.

"I find myself sympathizing with Zangetsu. 'Far too easily, and far too freely', indeed."

"I'm giving it away," Ichigo answered defensively. "It's not like it'll be going around Karakura granting wishes again."

"You invited it in. Do you think it will choose to leave?"

"You didn't." Muramasa didn't exactly have any right to complain.

The auburn-haired spirit paused, then nodded shortly in acknowledgement. "Kouga's inner world was a silent place. Once you have split your soul again, the difference will be… interesting."

Once he had… Ichigo froze. Muramasa raised his eyebrows as he felt the change in Ichigo's grip.

"It hadn't occurred to you?"

No, and given that everything Muramasa knew about the Hogyoku had come from a night of skimming Ichigo's memories, it really should have. Urahara had originally been trying to break down the barriers between hollow and shinigami.

What it could break, it could probably construct.

It woke up in his hand once more. The impression he got was now more of a sleepy grumble.

_: __**?**__ :_

'_**I want to reform them.**_'

_: __**?**__ :_

He brought memories of his zanpakuto and his hollow to the forefront of his mind, letting their lives flash before its eyes.

_: __**?**__ :_

He gave it a newly-recovered memory, one in which his basest survival instincts summoned Orihime's Shun Shun Rikka to split his soul into three pieces in order to live.

_: __**?**__ :_

"It's not working. It doesn't get what I want it to do."

"What a being desires with all of their heart is not necessarily what they should have," Koga's former zanpakuto said from painful experience, "and what they need, they may not truely desire."

Ichigo sighed and gave up as his friends returned. It could only understand his desires, and there was a significant portion of him that did not want to split his soul again. He couldn't even blame it entirely on the power that clung to his heart. He was whole, and it felt _right_. How could he let himself go back?

"Come on. Everyone'll still be back at the valley waiting for Nel to bring everyone home." Ichigo raised his left hand, now fully covered in a sleeve and with tattered bits of his bankai coat regrowing from the shoulder, and ripped the air open in front of them. He dropped his arm from Muramasa's shoulder, and his new sword disappeared as he walked into the Garganta.

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

"Garganta formation sensed at the location the Senkaimon formed," the captain of the Twelfth Division reported clinically.

"Reign over the frosted heavens, Hyorinmaru!"

The oldest captain in the Gotei 13 grunted in acknowledgement at the message, and glanced at the youngest. "Everyone knows who you may be protecting. No-one will question you if you make a different choice."

"He would do the same for me." Hitsugaya blurred away, racing to reach the center of the valley before the Garganta opened.

"Reduce all of creation to ashes, Ryuujin Jakka."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Ichigo stepped out of the void between the worlds and blinked in surprise as Hitsugaya Toshiro flashed to a stop in front of him, breathing heavily.

"Bankai. Daigurin Hyorinmaru."

As the Garganta closed behind the group, two wings of ice sprouted from Hitsugaya's back, and a small- _too_ small- dome of flame sprouted over the newcomers.

"Sennen Hyoro!"

"Toshiro, what the hell-" Even Ichigo found the heat uncomfortable, and as melting pillars of ice grew up behind them and surounded the rest of the emerging party, he realized that the white-haired boy's presence was the only thing keeping the more fragile members of their group alive.

"I'm not the one you should be talking to, Kurosaki," he snapped back, taking out a standard-issue communicator and pressing a button before tossing it at Ichigo.

Ichigo's frown deepened further. "What the hell's going on, Jii-san?"

The Soutaicho's rumble was made tinny by the speakers of the device. "Inoue Orihime. Ishida Uryuu. Kurosaki Ichigo. Three people capable of seeing through Kyoka Suigetsu's illusions, and all three were conveniently removed from the Seireitei this morning. Prove that you are Kurosaki Ichigo, or I will know that you are Aizen Sosuke and will kill you where you stand."

This was the second time that day, and this time there was no indestructible construct to destroy. "How do you expect me to do that?"

"Kurosaki Ichigo would know the answer to that question."

Ichigo blinked at the decidedly unhelpful reply as, behind him, his sisters felt the heat despite their father's spell and everything Hitsugaya could do and finally began stirring. Toshiro met his confused gaze and snapped, "Give him something he'll believe, Kurosaki, or we'll all die here!"

Something he'd believe…

/ "_A password I would believe. Remember the name."_**/**

He _sucked_ at remembering names, but it had been something common, something that at the time he hadn't thought he could forget-

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Yamamoto sighed as the seconds ticked by. That was it, then. He had given the impostor long enough. He spared a second of regret for the young prodigy whose belief in Kurosaki now meant he was protecting the man he hated, and for Kurosaki's family and friends, who were almost certainly dead, and most of all for the death of hope, a hope for the future of an idealistic orange-haired child with more potential than he'd seen in a thousand years. He raised his flaming sword, and prepared to enter the final release, and summon the fires of the earth, and once again reduce all of creation to ashes-

"Yamamoto Kasumi."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

The dome of flame opened from the top down, and the entire group relaxed as distant cheers from the shinigami surrounding the valley were carried towards them on the wind. Ichigo glanced at Hitsugaya, who must have believed strongly enough that Ichigo had won his fight that he had been willing to join them in the fire. "Thanks, Toshiro."

Hitsugaya automatically opened his mouth, hesitated, and then simply said, "Welcome back, Kurosaki."

"Ichi-niii?"

Hitsugaya visibly paled and retreated behind Renji as two bodies hit his mostly-regrown coat from behind, and Ichigo froze, not daring to move a muscle.

"Nii-san, you're all right! What did you do to your hair?"

Ichigo cautiously, _so_ cautiously, raised his hand and let the Hogyoku still nestled in his right palm connect with his reiatsu.

_: __**?**__ :_

'_**I want to be able to touch my sisters.**_'

The hair that Yuzu had commented on began to shorten. The chain coiled around his waist began to disappear link by link while the hilt and guard of the black daito altered shape, and his coat regrew its left sleeve as the glove that surrounded the Hogyoku disappeared. Unlike the last times, it was a painless process.

The return of his reiatsu was felt across the valley. In the circle of current and former shinigami that was closing on the group, Urahara frowned and doubled his pace. Yoruichi easily caught up with him.

Ichigo ignored the sulfurous cursing in his inner world and turned around, ruffling Karin's hair with one hand and pulling Yuzu's face into his stomach with the one holding his daito. "I told you it'd be alright."

Karin scowled. "Idiot. Don't _ever_ do that again."

"I won't." He smiled at her gently. It would never come to that again. If anyone so much as thought about threatening his sisters he would obliterate them.

Karin ignored the shiver that ran down her spine and nodded. "Good."

"You guys ready to go home?"

"Our home?" Yuzu asked hopefully. "Everyone was very nice, but school will be starting soon!"

"Yeah. Lemme get rid of this." He turned away just as the watchers reached the center of the valley to mob the newcomers. The Vizards split off to join Isshin and Chad, except for Mashiro, who bounced over to Karin and Yuzu. As soon as Kukaku and Ganju ran up, they went to meet their uncle for the first time in more than half a century. Renji and Rukia joined the captain of the Sixth, and Isane and Hanataro went with Orihime and Ishida while Unohana began a more thorough examination of everyone than Isshin had been able to manage. Ichigo himself was subject to congratulations, backslaps, and questions from pretty much everyone as he pushed through the crowd to where Yamamoto stood watching from afar. Urahara began to separate himself from the mass to follow him, but the sweep of Yamamoto's cane was enough to discourage anyone else in the crowd.

"Kurosaki Ichigo." The head of the Gotei 13 stood leaning on his cane, with his eyes in their typical squint. "Did events play out as you hoped?"

Ichigo scratched his head slightly sheepishly. "Not really, no. He knew the collar couldn't work. He just needed to get me there. He figured that he could use me instead of the people in Karakura to make a new Oken. When he-"

He was cut off by the sudden surge of Yamamoto's reiatsu as the old man's eyes fully opened. Behind them, the burgeoning celebration was cut off as everyone turned to find the new threat. They were clearly able to hear Ichigo quickly say "He didn't finish! He didn't know about Muramasa, and I killed him as soon as he got close enough, and broke the-"

"_Be. Silent."_ The order carried the weight of a thousand years of guardianship behind it. Ichigo blinked and shut up.

The hands clenched around the head of the Soutaicho's staff were white-knuckled with rage. "Follow me, Kurosaki."

He disappeared. Ichigo followed his reiatsu and joined him in midair far out of any conceivable earshot. A green-coated figure flashed into stillness next to him as Ichigo faced Yamamoto.

"Leave, Urahara Kisuke. This is no concern of yours."

"I beg your pardon, Soutaicho, but the object Kurosaki-san is in possession of is in fact my responsibility."

"Oh…" Ichigo glanced at the Hogyoku. In the wake of Yamamoto's reaction he'd almost forgotten it. He tossed it to Yamamoto. "Here. I thought you could put it with the royal artifacts. You can change the name to the King's Rock or something. You OK with that, Geta-boshi?"

"An elegant solution, Kurosaki-san." Urahara pulled his had a bit farther over his eyes. "I chatted with Ishida-san briefly in the crowd. A pity you were unable to destroy it."

Ichigo shrugged.

"… if I may suggest an additional security measure, Soutaicho, a weight sensor that sounds an alarm when the Hogyoku alters position would be prudent. It showed the ability to return to Aizen's hand when he called it, and although he is dead it would be wise to guard against the use of that ability." Urahara glanced at Ichigo pointedly. "Don't you agree, Kurosaki-san?"

"… yeah. Yeah, that would be a good idea." Ichigo sighed, running his hand through his hair again. "I'll need it again eventually. I can't … I can't stay this way forever."

The cursing that had continued in his soul stopped abruptly. Ichigo was reluctantly impressed- he didn't think the hollow had repeated himself once.

"How often?" Yamamoto asked, who had calmed down enough to close his eyes once more.

"Once a year?" Ichigo was instantly offered a different suggestion, but it wasn't the voices in his head that he was bargaining with. Yamamoto nodded curtly once.

"It will be better guarded than you were capable of, Urahara Kisuke. Leave."

Urahara glanced at Ichigo in concern, and only left after Ichigo jerked his head back in the direction they had come from.

"Who else knows about Aizen's attempt?"

Ichigo frowned and thought about it. "Anyone Aizen told, I guess, but Tosen's dead and I don't think any of the Arrancars would care. I haven't told my friends what happened yet- we got distracted by the Hogyoku after the fight with Tosen. I just told them I used Muramasa to kill him."

Yamamoto relaxed slightly. The damage could be contained, then. "Describe the entire confrontation with Aizen."

Ichigo did so, in as much detail as he could remember, and almost wishing he still had his memory projector. When he had finished, Yamamoto nodded slightly. Muramasa and the Oken- two wrongs had added to make a right, and only Kurosaki could have created an equation that bizarre.

"One of the most important duties of my position is to safeguard the location of the King's Key, Kurosaki Ichigo. The safety of the King cannot be compromised, or the dimensions will fall. He is the lynchpin that we all depend on.

"The existence of Karakura is an acceptable risk. It is the only place in the dimensions with both a high enough density of Reishi and of living souls to form the Key, but it already has more than five captain-class shinigami living there and reinforcements can be sent if necessary.

"You, however, could be used to form the Oken anywhere outside of the human world, and cannot be trusted to avoid situations where it would be possible."

"I'd have to merge to make it. Anyone who tried would regret it."

"Unless they struck at other targets, as Aizen did."

Ichigo gave him the same smile he'd given Karin, and repeated, "Anyone who tried would regret it."

Yamamoto snorted. "I have kept the location of one Oken a secret for a full millennia. I can keep another for less than a century. You will do the same." He could regard it as a test for Kurosaki. "Do not expand upon your story. Aizen was able to seal your power, but he did not know about your second Zanpakuto, and you killed him. Leave out any mention of the King's Key. I will not approve the funding for another memory projector. If Mayuri-taicho offers you one, refuse it."

Ichigo's scowl returned. "Like I'd take anything like that from you guys again."

"Good. Guard that secret, Kurosaki. Guard it carefully," and his eyes opened slightly, "for if I ever hear a hint of a rumor that your living soul could be used to enter the King's Realm, I will order the destruction of your mortal body."

His hand tightened around the hilt of Tensa Zangetsu at the threat. "Necessary sacrifices again, Jii-san?"

The tip of Yamamoto's cane thumped down on the air supporting it. "Be grateful I am giving you the chance, boy! Prove to me that you can keep this secret, and it will not _become_ necessary!"

Ichigo took a deep breath. "Fine." The old man was acting like he'd be selling the movie rights to it or something, not just telling the truth to his friends, but he'd show the old bastard. "Was that it, Gramps?"

"Do you plan on returning to the human world soon?"

Ichigo glanced back at the celebration behind him. Individual shinigami had begun drifting back to the Seireitei now that the crisis was past. Komamura and Hisagi had been the first to leave. "As soon as we've said our good-byes. I can give the others a ride back." He didn't really want to go through the Precipice World again any time soon.

Yamamoto took a letter out of the same inner pocket that now held the Hogyoku. "Do not break the seal. Bring it to me when I cannot remember you."

"You brought it with you?" He might not have been as pessimistic about Ichigo's chances as he'd let himself seem.

The Soutaicho ignored the question. "Ukitake-taicho and Unohana-taicho will remain in close contact with your father. Ukitake-taicho is also in possession of a device that may prove useful to you."

His badge. It would be good to get it back. Ichigo took the letter and raised his hand in farewell. "See you around, Jii-san."

"Yes, boy. You will."

It took almost half an hour to finish saying good-bye to the various shinigami he'd befriended. A few encounters stood out in his mind- Gin's grin on hearing about Aizen's fate and what Ichigo had done with the Hogyoku, wider than Ichigo had ever seen it; Nemu's small smile at hearing about the beginning of the fight with Tosen; Soi Fon's annoyance at hearing that Aizen had died from a frontal assault, without any of the training she had given Ichigo being used- but finally he turned away from his final exchange with Rukia and Renji and went to where the Vizards, Urahara, Yoruichi, his family and friends, and Ukitake had gradually converged. Somewhat to his surprise, Ukitake was conversing cordially with Rose. It was hard to remember that the members of the mysterious group he'd trained with for a month had been captains and lieutenants long before he was born.

"You guys ready to go?" Ichigo had eventually dropped out of the final release, and Zangetsu was wrapped around the red chain slung across his torso. It felt strange to be carrying two weapons, and the giant cleaver sometimes tapped the new sword that hung from his waist.

Ukitake spoke up, holding out a pentagonal brown badge with a black skull outline. "Before you leave, Kurosaki-san, I would like you to have this. It is an official license. There are a few regulations in Soul Society concerning substitute shinigami…"

"I know, thanks. Using Kon gets annoying." Ichigo took the outstretched badge willingly.

" 'Substitute shinigami?' Never heard of them," Lisa said dryly. "How long have these regulations existed?"

He'd _known_ it. "The badge is pretty much useless as ID, but it'll get me out of my body and let me know when a hollow's around. Thanks, Ukitake-san."

Ukitake coughed in mild embarassment, scratching his head as Ichigo ripped open the air in front of them. "Some form of official recognition was felt to be necessary. Identification is unlikely to be a problem, as I don't think there is now a member of the army who will not recognize him by sight. Have a safe trip, and I look forward to visiting soon."

Love, Lisa and Rose were the first into the Garganta, and a glistening white highway trailed behind them as the rest of the group followed. Ichigo raised one hand in farewell and joined his father and sisters. As they stepped through, Ichigo got an idea. He didn't ever go to the Karakura barbers; they always made odd comments about his hair color. He always stayed home.

"Hey, Yuzu, when we get home can you cut my hair?"

Her reply floated to the ears of the departing shinigami as the Garganta closed behind them. "But, Nii-san, it looks good like that!"

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

As the Garganta in front of the Kurosaki Clinic closed behind them, Love raised a hand in farewell. "You've had a long couple of days, and we won't impose on your hospitality, Isshin. Good luck. See you later, kids."

He was gone in a flash, with most of the Vizards following suit with similar expressions of farewell to Isshin, the twins, and Chad. Shinji was the only one that lingered to talk to Ichigo.

"Kisuke can let you know where our new base is. You're kin. You'd be welcome to visit. I'm _sure_" and his grin showed even more of his teeth than usual, "that Hiyori will enjoy meeting you."

Ichigo gave him a rare smile. "I will. Thanks. I'll bring Inoue by in a couple of months to look at Hachi. OK, Inoue?"

Orihime, a bit startled at being addressed out of the blue, bowed to the blond former captain. "Y-Yes! I'll be happy to help when I can!"

"You are my one true love. See you around." Shinji raised his hand in farewell, and was gone. Chad also waved silently, and he, Orihime, and Ishida returned to their own homes for the first time in weeks. Soon, only Urahara and Yoruichi remained.

When Ichigo dropped his waving arm and turned to them, Urahara had just closed what looked like a perfectly normal cell phone. "Kon is returning to the clinic as we speak, Kurosaki-san. Isshin-san, Tessai has placed a Gikon in your Gigai; it will accompany him."

"Thanks." Ichigo hesitated, but finally asked, "Are you OK with this?"

Urahara did him the courtesy of not deliberately misunderstanding him. "It is likely the best solution, assuming that you were _unable_," and that was said with another sharp glance, "to destroy it permanently. Power is a corrupting influence, Kurosaki-san. Perhaps the Hogyoku should indeed recognize as its master a being that has no need to use it to reach a higher level of power."

"Well, Yama-jii's been watching over a bunch of reality-warping artifacts for centuries, and hasn't ever used them," Yoruichi said cheerfully. "One more won't matter to him."

Urahara pulled his hat down farther so that the brim completely hid is eyes. "…indeed. And, in any case, we will know if the Hogyoku is summoned and used without official permission. Enjoy your return, Kurosaki-san, and welcome home."

He was gone in a blur, with Yoruichi following him an instant later.

"What was that about?" Isshin asked with a frown. Ichigo didn't answer, and instead reached down into his inner world for the new soul that hadn't left when he'd given the body containing its power to Yamamoto.

"Karin. Yuzu. I got something for you." He _pulled_, and a small black body manifested in his hands.

"A puppy!" Yuzu squealed, reaching gleefully to pet the sleeping animal. "Where'd you get him? Can he do any tricks?"

"He followed me home," Ichigo answered dryly. "He'll be asleep for a while, but he'll wake up eventually. I'm pretty sure he can play fetch."

"It looks like a Labrador." Karin was looking down at the small dog with an expression of disinterest that was belied by the gentle hand exploring his ears. "What's his name?"

"…Hogey."

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

_**fin**_

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Hogyoku ex Machina stands completed at 18 chapters and 179,560 words, and has taken up far more actual writing time over the past ten months than my thesis did. Over the course of the project, I have graduated, moved, started a job, and gone through a significant personal injury. The story stretched out to about half again as long as I'd initially planned, and although the basic outline has remained the same the vision I had for the story has been considerably fleshed out. There are times when I am tempted to regard the completion of a novel-length story, fanfiction or no, as one of the more significant creative accomplishments of my life to date.

There are times. And at those times, I look at the main character, an obscenely overpowered time-traveler with a second zanpakuto, and realize anew that I wrote a bad cliché. _And that I got away with it._

I had fun. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for sticking with me.


	19. Further Machinations

**A/N:** This is the promised preview for the sequel, titled 'Further Machinations'. It can be found on my profile.

So, it's been not quite two years since I updated, and canon has marched on. I'd kind of lost my enthusiasm for Bleach for a long time, but recently got back into the mood to write, mostly because I wanted to remember what I liked about the series. A lot of stuff I speculated on in Hogyoku ex Machina has been either confirmed or denied by Kubo since then, and I have no plans to go back and retcon any of it. Yamamoto's bankai is going to stay a giant dragon. Whether or not I ever bring in the Fullbring or Quincy stuff will kind of depend on how many continuations I wind up writing. This chapter was meant to be a one-shot, but it's been sitting half-finished on my hard-drive for a year and I finally decided to post what I had in order to motivate myself to finish. So, this will probably be a two-shot; I'm aiming to post the second half at the end of July, two years after HeM was finished. For everyone who is still reading after the huge hiatus, thanks for sticking around, and I hope you enjoy this small continuation!

**Disclaimer**: I have not gained ownership of Bleach in the intervening years.

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The night was still and quiet as Kuchiki Rukia came through the gates of the manor and through the door of her quarters, inclining her head in thanks to the servant that brought her a cup of tea. She took it into the garden and left it beside her as she unsheathed her sword and dropped into the familiar meditative pose. Rather than enter Jinzen immediately, though, she took a moment to simply look at the beautiful white blade in her hands. It had been a long day, and the sight of her sword rarely failed to bring her some measure of peace.

The Thirteenth Division was in a constant flurry of activity to prepare for the lengthy absence of their captain, but the hollow patrols still needed to be completed, and she had noticed a marked change in her interactions with the rest of the shinigami in the patrol. She had heard the whispers in the ranks around her, both before and after Karakura. _'Noblewoman, graduated too early, barely trained, if the Kuchiki name couldn't get her a seat how incompetent must she be-' _had changed to '_Could kill an Espada' _and '_did you see the battle where-'_

She had been given the point position, to take the brunt of any frontal attack and to lead any charge, when she had always been in the more protected middle before. The name of her adopted family, and apparently the rumored displeasure of her brother should she become hurt, had been a swaddling wrap she hadn't noticed restricting her until she had been sent on her solo assignment in Karakura. Now, though, everyone _knew_ she was capable of more. After all, they'd seen it. Seen it in the projected memories of a future that would never become the present.

'_I am not that woman.'_ It had been her thought when the eighth-seat placed Rukia at the front of the ten shinigami, in the position that was given to the strongest fighter, while the higher-ranked woman took the second-most-vulnerable position at their rear. _Rukia_ had never been through a war. She hadn't even been of any help when they were rescuing Ichigo from Tosen. _'Failed to protect the humans, changed Ichigo's life forever, had to be rescued from execution, took a spot in the exchange with Aizen that a stronger fighter could have used, how can I do this?'_ and she had to force herself to remember that her alternate self had failed just as badly, and had done what she had anyway.

Her fears hadn't mattered when the Huge Hollow attacked, and as she danced with it she could feel Sode no Shirayuki's smugness at _finally _being able to show the world what they were capable of. In front of her, the circle of ice had cracked, and as her dance partner shattered she had let her doubt shatter with it.

'_I am not that woman. But I will be.'_

It was that thought that she clung to as she _('not Eighth-seat Kanara, and why is it me?')_ had given the patrol report to Ukitake-taicho, and confirmed that her power had fully recovered from the drain of the last few months. She had been grateful; it had been the only reason they had delayed their captain's treatment in the human world. Before he began taking the human medicines, she would be accompanying her captain and _all_ of the adult members of the Shiba family to Hueco Mundo.

"Kaien-dono," Rukia whispered, bowing her head as her hands tightened around her sword. She sat that way for a long minute before moving to stab the blade upright into the soft ground in front of her, and took a deep breath as she settled back into her preferred meditation position.

The woman she would have become had set him free. For the sake of Shiba Kaien's soul, she would become that woman again.

"Rukia!" The joyous call and tinkling laughter snapped her eyes open just before she began to push her heart into her blade. The speaker was a pixie-faced girl with enormous green eyes and blond hair, and Rukia's blood went as cold as the hollow she had destroyed earlier that day.

'_No note, it's too soon and there was supposed to be a note-'_ but even as she grabbed her sword and bolted to her feet she remembered that the note had been to _bring her from the human world-_

"Stop, Hom-!" and she was cut off as the scythe swept through her from behind.

The white sword was left abandoned next to a still-steaming cup of tea.

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**A/N**: The remainder of the chapter can be found under Further Machinations, which can be found on my profile.


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